Its going to decrease property values is one of the most irksome phrases in the English language. It is used constantly and so easily and so destructively. What will neighbors ever tolerate except more of what they themselves represent and treasure?How did we get to the point where howling neighbors can stop just about anything? In other eras, there was more freedom to erect what was practical on property you owned. While there was more hodge-podge before master planning and strict zoning, there also was a more live-and-let-live attitude. The not-in-my-back-yard, or NIMBY, mindset consequently drives planned projects ever onto the periphery of cities, thus feeding sprawl and more highway construction in an endless churn.Its strange how neighborhoods will allow a Methodist church but not an Islamic mosque. In recent years, a number of Scottsdale churches seeking to expand have been challenged by neighborhoods. Groups of citizens have demanded the city council adopt new limits on churches that would curb their programming and hours. Some of the opposition has to be simply an anti-religion attitude.In Hayward, Calif., for example, Fijian Muslims intend to build a domed mosque capped with four minarets on a slice of land by an elementary school. The neighborhood has a row of Christian churches put up in the 1950s and 1960s during rapid construction of homes. According to Daily Review in Hayward, neighbors are looking warily at the plan and several say they believe the mosque will decrease residential property values in their central Hayward neighborhood. When Mohammed Khan, president of the Muslim group, met recently with 20 neighbors to explain the plans for the 15,000-square-foot mosque, he got a chilly reception.Writes reporter Matt OBrien: Whoever drives down Ventura (Avenue) will see that, complained one resident, describing how visitors might react seeing the towering minarets. This is going to be at the expense of a lot of us people who put a lot of equity in our homes.A call to a nearby Adventist Church got a response that the mosque is not going to happen, then that person hung up. One man who first said the project was OK later balked at there being the two-story mosque and said it would detract from the value of the neighborhood. Some complain the mosque is too much for a small lot. It would also include a basement and a small residence for the imam. Khan, a 17-year resident of Hayward, who has to go to San Francisco to find a mosque for worship, said he has yearned for many years for a mosque in own city. Another Muslim group was previously rebuffed from building a mosque in Haywards Jackson Triangle neighborhood, because of people voicing some of the same complaints.Obviously if people were more open-minded, tolerant and accepting, a mosque would be just one more place of worship quickly gotten used to, and soon folks would be oblivious to it like any structure. A progressive community takes pride in being home to a diverse faith community and will be surprised what having a major world religion will mean to its fabric. Its just too easy to raise the fear of taking a hit on ones home values. It wouldnt even be an issue if there wasnt such underlying prejudice.

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