Fairview mayor urges LDS temple steeple reduction amid ongoing dispute

Construction is moving ahead on the Fairview Texas Temple site off Stacy Road, but Mayor John Hubbard has asked The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to reconsider one last detail: the steeple height that still divides neighbors, town leaders and church members.

Hubbard’s new letter seeks a voluntary reduction in the temple’s steeple, even though Fairview already approved the permit that lets the project proceed. The mayor said the dispute has continued to split residents after months of emotional town hall meetings, and he argued that another change could help ease tensions and heal the community without stopping the temple itself.

The fight began in March 2024, when the church proposed a roughly 44,000-square-foot, multi-story temple with a 174-foot spire on Stacy Road. Neighbors said that design would have made the temple the tallest structure in town and would have pushed past local height limits. Fairview later approved a compromise on April 29 and 30, 2025, by a 5-2 vote, allowing a one-story temple of about 30,742 square feet with a 120-foot steeple and spire and a roof and facade height cap of 44 feet 7 inches.

That approval came after Fairview’s Planning and Zoning Commission recommended a tougher version of the project, including a height cut to under 70 feet and tighter lighting and site restrictions. Just before the council vote, the church renamed the project the Fairview Texas Temple. Homeowners filed a lawsuit in June 2025 challenging the permit, arguing the town lacked enough votes under Texas law, and later said they were prepared to seek a restraining order if construction permits were filed.

The new letter does not try to stop the project. Instead, it asks church leaders to revisit the part of the design that has remained the sticking point from the start: how tall the temple will rise above a town that has tried to balance religious development, zoning rules and resident expectations. Hubbard pointed to newer temples in places such as Vienna and Yorba Linda, California, where steeples are shorter or absent, as examples of what he called a possible path toward lower tension.

The Church first announced plans for a temple in Prosper on Oct. 2, 2022, then later identified the site as Fairview. The location was announced Dec. 4, 2023 as an 8.16-acre parcel on Stacy Road just east of the meetinghouse at 651 East Stacy Road. By May 2026, visible construction behind a fence had shifted the debate from whether the temple would be built to what Fairview’s skyline will look like when it is finished.