Living in Irvine Means Eternal Rest Elsewhere

Irvine has long been marketed as a place where people can “live, work and play.”

But John Harris, who was a young engineer for the Irvine Co. in the 1960s and is now principal planner for the city of Irvine, is certain that everyone who moves to Irvine for its excellent schools, safe streets and meticulously groomed neighborhoods eventually ends up moving out.

When they die.

Irvine, a city that sprang from ranchland a generation ago to offer a master-planned vision of the suburban good life, lacks a place for the inevitable afterlife.

Now, city officials are looking to correct the oversight. As part of Irvine’s push to build a “Great Park” instead of a commercial airport at the former El Toro Marine base, a committee is studying the need for a cemetery at the site.

“I think it would complete the city,” said City Councilman Mike Ward, who chairs the committee. “We pride ourselves as being a master-planned community. But we’re master-planned only to a point. We don’t have everything that a mature city needs, and that includes a cemetery.”

The issue, which has percolated in Irvine for years, is receiving increased attention as the city’s demographics change.

The 2000 census counted 21,267 people in Irvine 55 and older. That’s up 70% from 1990 and more than twice the rate of growth for the population as a whole.

The city, built on a foundation of young families with children, is growing up fast.

“Over the years, Irvine really focused on youth--building the sports fields and schools that draw people here,” Harris said. “Now, there are some people who are saying ‘Enough with soccer fields; let’s get some fields for us.’ ”

Harris, 64, is among them. “I feel like I’ve been part of this community’s growth. I don’t want to leave when I die.”

Neither does Tom Murray.

The 76-year-old retired aerospace engineer grew up in Logan, Utah. His parents wanted to be buried there because it was their home.

Wants to Be Buried Where He Lived

Murray left Utah for California when he was 21 and never looked back. He moved to Irvine in the 1970s when the city was young and booming. He became active in civic groups. Three of his children went to school there.

To them--and Murray’s 25 grandchildren--Irvine is home.

“I don’t have any strong desire to be shipped back to Utah. I’d just as soon be right here,” said Murray, a member of the cemetery study committee and the city’s Senior Citizens Council. “You’d like to be buried where you feel comfortable. A place where you’ve got your roots.”

The Irvine Co.’s original master plan included such a place. An area near the San Diego Freeway and Laguna Canyon Road was set aside for a cemetery. But the parcel was rezoned in 1988 as part of an open space land-swap agreement between the city and the company.

“The place was growing so fast that the cemetery idea just kind of fell through the cracks,” Harris said.

In 1994, while watching a battle in neighboring Newport Beach over a mausoleum expansion, Richard DeLapp began to think of death--his own, and how his hometown for the last three decades planned to accommodate it.

DeLapp, 78, believes strongly in Irvine’s master plan. He finds comfort in its logic and limitations.

When he discovered that the cemetery had been erased from the plan, he pushed the City Council to do something about it.

But after some discussion and study, the idea faded again.

“I’m trying to survive here, hanging on until they get that cemetery,” DeLapp said. “I’m chemically maintained now. Taking a lot of pills for my heart and diabetes.”

DeLapp was asked to serve on the latest study committee. Members have joked that if a cemetery is ever built they should name it after DeLapp. He has been pushing for it longer and harder than anyone else.

DeLapp conceded that it’s unlikely he’ll see a cemetery in Irvine in his lifetime. He has thought of stipulating in his will that he be moved back to Irvine if a cemetery is built after his death.

“I’d have to talk to my wife first to see whether she wants to be moved around like that,” he said.

Survey Finds Cemetery Support

A countywide survey conducted by Great Park supporters more than a year ago found support for a combination public cemetery and veterans memorial at El Toro.

Making part of the project a veterans cemetery could bring federal funding, Harris said. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is trying to boost the number of national and state veterans cemeteries to meet expected demand as the World War II generation dies.

Money from Washington would be crucial, observers said, because it’s unlikely that the city would pay to build or maintain a cemetery at El Toro. What’s more, the cost of land has all but stopped private cemetery construction across California in recent decades. But a public-private partnership could work at El Toro, committee members said.

“All they have to do is get approval, and I’ll build it,” said Dennis Gallagher, president of Heritage Memorial Services in Huntington Beach, one of three private firms represented on Irvine’s cemetery committee.

Gallagher, who lives in Irvine, said a cemetery at El Toro is a longshot because it’s ultimately tied to the airport fight.

But he’d love to see it happen. If not as a business deal for him, then as a way to round out the city.

In Irvine, life is controlled by the master plan. And death, Gallagher said, is just another part of life.

He envisions a new motto for the city in the future.

“Come to Irvine, and stay to eternity,” he said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Plotting a Park

A cemetery and veterans war memorial are being considered for the city’s proposed Great Park.