Iraq War Memorial Sparks Fight Over Property Values [View All]

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The Wall Street Journal

Iraq War Memorial Sparks Fight Over Property Values
By BOBBY WHITE
June 6, 2007; Page B1

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But as the budding controversy in Lafayette shows, unease over property values may sometimes trump antiwar attitudes. As one of the nation's most unaffordable places to live, real-estate concerns often run high on residents' minds. According to the California Association of Realtors, the median price of a home in San Francisco in March was $750,000. In Lafayette, set amid oak-tree-studded rolling hills and boasting a top school district, the median home price that month was $1.05 million.

As a result, the Lafayette crosses -- which now number 3,475, roughly representing the number of U.S. soldiers who have been killed in Iraq -- have sent the denizens of the town into an uproar. To a large number of residents that live in the city, the crosses are an eyesore that is drawing undue attention from pro- and antiwar factions. Real-estate agents have warned some residents their home prices are sure to go down if the crosses remain, although the locale's median home prices have hovered at around $1 million for the past year, according to the California Association of Realtors.

Similar grass-roots war memorials that have cropped up elsewhere have raised far less objection. In Asheville, N.C., soldiers' names, ages and hometowns are engraved on smooth river rocks and fastened to a cinderblock wall. On Santa Monica Beach in Los Angeles, crosses and flag-draped coffins are placed just north of the main pier. Another memorial with thousands of crosses has appeared on a beach in Santa Barbara, Calif. To safeguard their home values, Lafayette residents have now stormed into once-sparsely attended city-council meetings and demanded changes to local sign ordinances. On Monday, the city council is due to decide a measure that would limit the number of signs posted on a property.

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City administrators say there's little they can do because the crosses are on private property. "No one anticipated that someone would install 3,000 signs on a property," says Steven Falk, Lafayette's city manager. "We have no authority to require the signs be moved." Mr. Heaton, who has lived in Lafayette for most of his life, began the war memorial in November after approaching Louis and Johnson Clark, family friends that owned two adjacent plots of land that total five acres. The vacant hillside, which is zoned as residential, is easily viewable from a nearby highway and commuter train station.

Along with a handful of volunteers, Mr. Heaton started by planting several hundred crosses on the five-acre site. (A number of Stars of David and crescent moons are also part of the memorial.) A few days later, he began hearing complaints. While driving along the adjacent thoroughfare, a former marine sergeant spied a sign that accompanied the crosses, which at that time read "In Memory of 2,867 U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq," and tore it down. In December, vandals spread black paint over the sign. Fights broke out at the memorial in March after members of a pro-troops caravan touring the nation stopped there and, saying the crosses were antiwar, clashed with memorial organizers. Dozens of local peace groups -- such as the Mount Diablo Peace Center -- have gotten involved by holding vigils and rallies at the memorial.

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