CAMBY — An audience of about 150 threw dozens of questions at the owners of the Links at Heartland Crossing at an open meeting last Wednesday, Aug. 6, held at the golf course clubhouse in Camby.
At issue was a new plan to convert the golf course from 18 holes to nine and to construct nearly 370 homes where tee boxes, greens, fairways and rough now stand.
Many questions came courteously from the audience, while others were more pointed and a few were shouted at Jeff Banning, president of Banning Engineering, who facilitated the meeting and spoke for Links owners Ron Overton and Shawn Stewart.
He said on Monday that another open meeting is planned.
“The goal will be to update where we are at,” Banning said. “If it takes a third meeting or more, we are open to that.”
In a statement on social media late last week, Heartland resident Kari Holsapple Mann, who has opposed converting any of the golf course to residential development, lauded the owners for holding the meeting but said “the majority of those in attendance seemed to oppose this development.
“While there may have been some in favor, they did not speak up during this session.”
Downsize to 9 holes
The plan, Banning said at the outset, is based on the premise that the owners “are moving forward with redoing the golf course,” downsizing it from18 holes to nine.
“We know change is difficult,” Banning told the crowd, later referring to the owners’ unsuccessful effort last year to have the whole course converted to a 600-unit housing development on its 190 acres.
“Last time, we weren’t leading the show,” he said. “This time, we want to be hugely involved and communicate with all of you and to try to understand your concerns and questions.”
On Monday, Banning contended it was Indy-based Gradison Land Development Inc. that drove the agenda last year.
Last year’s proposal was withdrawn by Gradison in September 2024 after strong opposition from a sizable number of Heartland Crossing residents and on the same day as a scheduled hearing before the Morgan County Plan Commission.
That withdrawn plan, folded into what is called a planned unit development (PUD), would have required rezoning the 190 acres, part of which had been designated as green space in Heartland Crossing’s original agreement that was entered into in the mid-1990s by the three-county boundaries — Morgan, Hendricks and Marion — the development of more than 2,500 homes crosses.
Paperwork supporting the green space agreement was found in a private file last year by Heartland resident Lauren Huffman. Morgan County’s copy of the document was lost in a flood of a county building in the late 2000s.
Plan to be filed Sept. 8
The current plan is to be filed with Morgan County on Sept. 8, Banning said, with the hopes that the county plan commission could take it up as early as October (or at a subsequent plan commission meeting) and could be decided by the nine-member governmental body. The Morgan County Commissioners would make the final decision. One of the commissioners, Kenny Hale, is also a plan commissioner member.
The plan, illustrated on poster-size images at the front of the room that audience members inspected, shows single-family homes on what is now the course’s front nine holes. The homes would cost in the $300,000-$350,000 range, Banning said.
Banning said Monday the owners are not working with “any particular developer or builder” at this juncture. And if the new plan goes through, Gradison would not be chosen as the developer.
According to that new plan, the back nine would remain open for play with necessary modifications made to hole 17. Overton said the Links would sign a five-year agreement to maintain a nine-hole course for at least that long.
While not all of Links’ current land is included in the proposed housing development, all of its acreage would be included in the rezoning request.
Banning also said the owners want to keep a cart path on the front nine even after home construction so there would be a path around the residential development. The plan also would include barriers that could involve mounds or trees. A stand of tall grass currently separates the course from Heartland Crossing roadways and houses that border the holes.
A new entrance into Heartland would be cut at Landersdale Road, Banning said.
The new plan allows about 80 acres for golf, 2 acres for a new, smaller clubhouse and maintenance building, 109 acres for housing and about 40 acres of common space, he said.
Thrive Church
The existing clubhouse and 10 adjacent acres would be sold to Thrive Church of Camby, which is currently looking for a building site; it now meets at Mooresville Christian Academy.
The church would adapt the building to meet its needs and develop a community center approach to become “an organic part of the neighborhood,” lead Thrive Pastor Steve Bolin told The Correspondent.
During last week’s meeting, Bolin said the owners approached the church and that the church is “not trying to take anything away,” and is hoping it could add to the community.
“Building at $350 per square foot is tough,” Bolin said, adding this option “would be much more affordable.”
The golf course is not currently nor would be part of the Heartland homeowner’s association.
“This is a private, separate entity,” Banning said.
He noted that none of the course’s six ownerships have done well financially.
“And we’re going to try to find a way to make the business part of it work,” Banning said. “With that comes a residential development.”
‘If you respect the people’
One of the most compelling audience comments at the meeting came from Mooresville insurance executive Rex Nichols:
“The quality of development to the town of Mooresville and this area is important to my kids and grandkids. We lost Gray’s cafeteria that had been there forever. This place (the golf course) is an attraction. People moved in here because of the golf course.
“If the original developer did not have to have green space,” Nichols added, “he could have sold the lots [now occupied by the golf course and] he could have made [more] money.
“So if you are concerned about Morgan County and Mooresville, I think this is ridiculous.”
“If you respect this town and respect the people,” the change should not go forward, Nichols said.
