Iraq War Memorial Sparks
Fight Over Property Values

Like many San Francisco Bay Area residents, Shelly Valerio is against the continued conflict in Iraq. "I really wish we weren't in Iraq; it's causing such strife," says the 45-year-old personal trainer, who lives in this upscale town east of Berkeley, Calif.

But when a local, Jeff Heaton, late last year planted dozens of three-foot-high crosses on a hillside to commemorate U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq, Mrs. Valerio -- and many of Lafayette's 24,000 other residents -- objected. Instead of embracing the gesture, which Mr. Heaton says is part of an effort to "end all wars," Mrs. Valerio attended city-council meetings for the first time to voice her displeasure. She signed protest petitions, met with the Lafayette mayor to complain, and put eight signs on her front lawn decrying the "cemetery" that had sprouted up near her home.

The reason for Mrs. Valerio's stance: She had planned to sell her four-bedroom house, which she bought in 1998 for $469,000, before the war memorial appeared. But she put her plans on hold after the crosses popped up and real-estate agents told her the property would fetch much less than her planned asking price of nearly $1 million.

"I would've helped them plant pretty flowers," says Mrs. Valerio. "But now my property value has shot down and the city won't reassess what my home is worth."

The San Francisco Bay Area has long been a hub for anti-Iraq war sentiment. During the 2004 presidential election, 83% of San Franciscans who voted did so for Democratic candidate John Kerry, according to election data, partly because of dissatisfaction over the Iraq war. Earlier this year, nearly 5,000 people marched in city streets to protest the war, one of several such large demonstrations over the past five years.

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.

In March, residents also enlisted a local fire expert to call the crosses a fire hazard. That fire expert, Mark Harrison, Harrison Associates, based in Concord, Calif., says the wooden crosses could spark a fire similar to one that occurred 16 years ago in nearby Oakland, Calif., when nearly 2,500 homes were destroyed.

Volunteers have placed thousands of crosses on a hill in Lafayette, Calif.

"What they are doing up there isn't safe -- all that wood up on that hill," says Jim Minder, 54, a Lafayette resident and construction contractor. "Those crosses are just bunched up on each other. All you need is just a single match and then chaos."

"Lafayette is a nice, expensive neighborhood and they basically placed an enormous mock cemetery here," says John Helms, a local insurance broker who opposes the crosses.

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 says he's taken measures to reduce the chances of a fire. He and his supporters have trimmed low-hanging tree limbs, cleared brush and debris, and spaced the crosses a little farther apart. They are also considering using steel crosses in place of wooden ones.

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.

Crosses tallying U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq.

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.

Mr. Heaton says he didn't expect such controversy and didn't think about the memorial's effect on property values. For him, the main issue was America's war in Iraq. "I hope when people see the memorial and reflect on it they understand there are real consequences," says the 53-year-old construction contractor. "War should not be a solution to end conflicts."

Three attorneys have since offered their services to him pro bono to help him keep up the crosses, according to Mr. Heaton. The American Civil Liberties Union has also weighed in, writing a three-page letter to Lafayette's city council in May challenging any new ordinance that would limit the crosses on the grounds of free speech.

"Residential signs play a vital role in the marketplace of ideas protected by the First Amendment," says Ann Brick, an ACLU attorney who drafted the letter.

Some Lafayette residents are resigned to the crosses remaining. "In our hearts we know this isn't going to go on forever," says Mrs. Valerio. "But we thought the war wouldn't go on for as long as it has." For now, she has no plans of selling her home.

Email your comments to rjeditor@dowjones.com.