DENVER (KDVR) — Since 2019, officials and engineers at Fort Logan National Cemetery have been looking to expand to address a growing need for burials at the cemetery.
There are currently 60 acres the cemetery is looking at, and 49 of those are going to be developed. But, it’s a particular section of that development that has raised concerns in the community.
“Part of the development that’s affecting the neighbors is the construction of a columbarium that’s going to go down the south side of our property that butts up to the neighborhood,” said the cemetery’s director, Tony Thomas.
The development in question, which is being proposed by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs Office of Construction and Facilities Management, would line about a half-mile of the perimeter of the property with a series of ten-foot-tall walls to house cremated burials.
“In the last 10 to 12 years as our economy has changed, there’s more of a need for cremated burials than there are for casketed burials. So, with that increased need for cremated burials, we give our veterans the option of an in-ground cremation or columbarium cremation,” Thomas said.
During a town hall meeting to answer questions and educate the community on the project, more than a hundred people packed the room in the administration building on site and raised concerns about the construction.
“We’re here to attend a town meeting put on by the VA to, as we understand it, tell us about their plans to build a half-mile-long wall of buildings to house cremated remains,” said Carol Andrew, who lives near the cemetery. “These buildings are going to be 10 feet tall and as close to our backyards as they can come.”
Andrew, who has owned a home near the cemetery for 31 years and even has relatives buried in the cemetery, said the location of the columbarium would take away part of the reason why people live near Fort Logan.
“This changes the character of our neighborhood’s relationship with the cemetery a great deal,” Andrew said. “People who buy a house next to a national cemetery do so for a reason. They want to be there. They feel it’s an honor to live next to that hallowed grounds.”
Many also brought up how this could impact property values.
“Even when construction is over, it will be there permanently and we’ll live with it, not only our day-to-day experience but our lives and our home and looking out over the graves which is meaningful to us,” Andrew said.
Others brought up a security aspect the columbarium would pose. One community member who attended the meeting said that a thoroughfare blocked by a wall next to property lines could invite vandals, trash, graffiti and other safety concerns.
Andrew also brought up the issue of lack of public notice. She said this is a project that had been in the making for years, but community members found out via a publication in the Denver Herald-Dispatch three days before comments were due.
“The human beings that live right next door, grass to grass with this beautiful place that honors our veterans received no notice. No actual notice. In a study that spent hundreds of pages on our houses as buildings, but no time on us as human beings and people who feel themselves to be an important part of the military community in general,” Andrew said.
The meeting that was supposed to end at 6 p.m. carried over about 20 minutes as the community asked Thomas and the engineers on the project to put a pause on construction. Thomas told the community they would continue discussions on this, and he hoped to arrange one-on-one time with the community and the construction team to reach a possible solution.
