Neighbors Up In Arms Over Realtor Bid To Desecrate Cemetery

* Foremost, this is somewhat of a deviation from the standard rendition regarding fraudulent activities in the home setting. Yet, cemeteries are homes also although of another sort. The Crown Hill Cemetery is the legally designated home for so many people who are no longer actively with us. So, in this article I convey my sentiments about what I perceived as how a certain reality establishment seeks to believably exploit the defenseless fragility of the deceased whom's final worldly resting place is in this kind of setting.

The Risk: Reportedly, a court-appointed real estate firm, Pacific Crest Realty Advisors [alleged receiver], is said to have plans for building a new housing development at the cost of disturbing possible remains of deceased people in the vacant portion of the cemetery indicating an intent to fuse recently forfeited property that’s proximal to the Crown Hill Cemetery {which is also the Ballard Cemetery]. Yet, there’s a possibility that there are unmarked/inconspicuous areas where bodies are still buried. This is a very high probability since the cemetery is approximately 163 years old [established in 1863].

Sentimental Values: Although all neighbors of the area may not have relatives buried in the Crown Hill Cemetery, many do. And it’s absolutely appalling for them to know that the realty concern could be so audacious as to discount the impact such a move as developing new housing so near and even on the final resting place of their relatives, much more, the final for their friends, close associates, and prior community and societal luminaries we still miss. As it is, the cemetery, aside from being sacred ground, is a place where we can be nearer to those we miss even as they’re no longer physically in our presence. It’s a way we express our rekindling of love, devotion, and/or appreciation to those who still have meaning in our lives. We’re settled, to an extent, on the cemetery being their final resting place [in terms of their mortality].

They’re Not Just Bodies: Those buried are still people irrespective of their passing, and they’re still honored, respected, admired, and loved by those of us who visit/remember them as deserving of at least that same honor and respect [at minimum]. But this seemingly total disregard for their well-being by ambitious realtors while they’re yet defenseless in their present state is horrendous. Those graciously interred at Crown Hill Cemetery aren’t ‘just bodies,’ but people for whom this is their FINAL resting place for well over a century since Lucy Ann Seaton [the first to be buried here – June 2, 1864]. And there are family plots of which one contains nine gravestones neatly set on the Crown Hill Cemetery lawn beginning with the one for the apparent family patriarch who was born in 1898. The latest of the nine markers is for a descendent who passed in 1997. In other areas , there are the babies, couples buried side-by-side, couples buried together, sons, daughters, moms, dads, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, on and on. Staggering.

Summary [partially source supported]: It's my understanding that the 'distressed asset' firm, Pacific Crest Realty Advisors, was appointed by the King County Superior Court as the receiver to manage a believably adjacent foreclosed property to find a new owner. But this is an enormous stretch to even think of building on, or so near to a cemetery, even to have the unforgivable impudence for attempting to financially wrestle away the seemingly vacant lot area of the Crown Hill Cemetery where there still may be deceased people. There’s also a mountainous hill of dirt which’s edge connects physically over the edges of gravestones. What next? This is difficult to ascertain at this point. The last day for Public Comment against this is January 7, 2026. So, it seems sort of a vulgarity to designate the land on which the gravestones of the Crown Hill Cemetery are planted, for any realtor to be so calloused as to demonstrate this insufferable degree of reckless disregard for the sovereignty and sanctity of the Crown Hill Cemetery and for the ever-present sentimental values of those who have relatives, associates and friends interred there, and for those who are not able to speak for themselves. So we speak for them!

R.I.P. dear ones....