In Battlecreek Heights, a volunteer neighborhood project meant to replace a worn, vandalized entrance sign has ended with a new steel sign sitting beside a resident’s house — taken down after city staff told organizers the replacement exceeded what’s allowed in a residential zone and would require a zoning adjustment with a fee of $1,989 to keep it in place.
“It looked really cool,” said Shawn Cleave, a Battlecreek Heights resident who helped lead the project. “Even last month I had somebody email: ‘What happened to our beautiful sign?’”
Cleave said the neighborhood’s original sign had been deteriorating for years after students waiting nearby for South Salem High School pickups chipped and broke pieces off it. For a while, neighbors tried patchwork fixes, replacing letters as they disappeared. In an email to the city, homeowner Debbie Shields said letters were being stolen “on a pretty consistent basis,” and estimated the neighborhood had to replace letters at least six to eight times…