Neighbor asks council to deny rezoning livestock-auction property to allow apartments and such near National Cemetery

I own a home on the south side of Fayetteville — a field of wildflowers and tall grass and a nature park separate my home from Pinnacle Foods and the railroad on the west. My home is separated from the now-closed Washington County Livestock Auction to the east by a couple of blocks of homes and a stream crossing with the Fayetteville National Cemetery the largest parcel. It is a shining jewel in the center of the neighborhood with its flag visible from all directions. Created in 1867, it is on the National Register of Historic Places and truly a National Shrine.
This neighborhood was rural when the sale barn was built in 1936. The cemetery, my house and a few others were here when most of the land was a dairy farm. A neighbor's house was moved about 200 feet south by mules in the 1930s. A house or two up the road stood when the Butterfield stagecoach delivered mail. The farms were subdivided and most of the houses were built with the sale barn as a neighbor in the 1950s or '60s.
Ours is a quiet single-family neighborhood primarily, with a mix of light industrial, agricultural uses, a few duplexes and a 12-unit single-story apartment building with young families, middle-aged and older folks living here.
This unique neighborhood deserves to be preserved, as new developments attempt to emulate much of what we have.
The sale barn has faced criticism as Fayetteville grew up around it. Established use and preservation of a way of life won it favor many a time, but now its time has passed.
The only thing that makes a bit of sense is to rezone this parcel and the rest of the area as "neighborhood conservation." Period.
The proposal for rezoning to allow rent-by-the-room student apartments and such is simply incompatible with the surroundings. We owe our veterans' final resting place that respect.
Estimates are that the cemetery has capacity for only the next decade. Will we have our troops out of harm's way by then? The sale barn's 11 acres could add a century.
I ask my neighbors and the community at large to join me in urging members of the Fayetteville City Council to be good stewards and take the opportunity to rezone to "neighborhood conservation" and nothing less.
The council meeting at 6 p.m. July 7 will address this issue. Please call, write and come out to give a voice to preserving our neighborhood and not allow the way to be paved for a mega-complex to overshadow the National Cemetery.
Lauren Hawkins