With no prior community notification and essentially no prior discussion among themselves, in 2020 Carrboro Town Council approved Public Works’ proposal to pay the Pennsylvania CVDA consultants $47,000 to create a blueprint for filling our meadow with graves and structures. Although that plan lacks legitimacy due to its dubious genesis, the Council seems to now be taking that blueprint as a starting point as they discuss expanding the Davie graveyard.
If our Town-owned 3 acre meadow on Fidelity were allowed to be developed with two bedroom condos like other housing on Fidelity, then it could be sold for that purpose for perhaps $2 million. Does it make sense to give up $2 million worth of centrally located land in order to save the mere $90,000 it would take to buy 3 beautiful rural acres out Jones Ferry? Does anyone now wish that Carrboro’s first cemetery (along the bike path behind the Armadillo Grill) had been twice as large?
If it had been, then we would not now have the space to centrally locate the new ArtsCenter right behind the Armadillo:
On February 7 this year the Council was told there were only 102 plots along Davie remaining for sale. Nonetheless the Council voted to continue to sell not only “Immediate Use” plots to non-residents, but they also refused to suspend sales of “Future Use” plots as well. Since the Town Code allows sales to grandchildren, some of the Future Use plots being sold this year might not be used for another 80 years! On February 7 a staff member told the council that some families had recently bought 10 or more Future Use plots. The Town Manager once said when he was Assistant Town Manager in Elon a family had bought 12 Future Use plots. The author of this website knows two people who somehow ended up owning plots for which they do not have plans.
The CVDA blueprint below proposes using all of our meadow and some of our woods to pack in 1,456 conventional graves, 306 green burials, and 1,038 buried cremains. This adds up to 2,800 new burials. In addition to six structures housing a “columbarium” with 2,400 sets of ashes, there would be a lengthened paved driveway and concrete for a seated area and a memorial wall. All of these stones and additional asphalt and concrete would exacerbate the existing Urban Heat Island stretching from the gym and Town Hall down to 400 Davie. One should question whether a clunky town government should attempt to satisfy the shifting burial preferences of our transplanted baby boomers. One should also ask why our neighborhood is somehow obligated to host more graves and graveyard facilities on top of the 2,231 graves we will soon be hosting when the existing Davie graveyard is full.
GY4 Graveyard Solution continues Graveyard?
GY2 Morality and Politics was previous page
Make Carrboro Parks 