This week a presentation will be made by the DPW to the Selectmen to use the Wildwood School site as another cemetery. This proposal should be rejected immediately.
The town already has three cemeteries which occupy prime property right in the middle of the community. The last one was acquired when the town exercised its right to acquire the Seminatore property around 1986. The town had the right because the property was under a tax classification that reduced the property tax as an agricultural use but gave the community the right of first refusal if the property was sold for commercial use.
The property was under option to be acquired for use as a large assisted living facility when the town exercised its rights and decided to use the property to expand the cemetery which was right down the street from the existing Chestnut Hill Cemetery and the original Olde Burying ground.
At the time of this acquisition, the town had a moratorium on grave sales because of lack of space. You could only buy a group of four graves when you had a death in your immediate family. At the time of the acquisition the board had stated that despite the fact that new ground was being purchased it was necessary to keep the moratorium and make the new property last as long as possible. When the new space ran out it was time to determine if it was appropriate for the town to continue to be in the business of using vital town property for burial purposes.
Despite the fact that knowing that space would be dwindling, subsequent boards did not keep in place a moratorium and here we are 20 years later discussing the need for new space. Some people connected to the burial industry have even suggested that an appropriate use for the Land Locked land is to bury people there!
The time is now to end any commitment to providing new burial space in the town. No where in the town by laws or charter does it say that the town should be committed to providing this service forever. One only need to examine the pace at which the town has developed to figure out that eventually there will be no space at all, town owned or otherwise to bury the deceased.
At some point the decision is inevitable so it might as well be made now rather than later so that sites like the Wildwood property can be kept for the benefit of the living rather than the dead.
If the leadership insists on using additional property for cemetery space then they ought to consider the acquisition of the Thorstensen properties on Muller Road. The site consists of approximately 14 acres in a total of 10 parcels, 8 parcels zoned IG that front Muller Road and and 2 zoned RO. Since this area will be under a good deal of development stress in the coming years perhaps a cemetery use might be more acceptable to the neighbors than having business uses adjacent to them.
The property should soon come out of probate and it would appear that it will be available at a reasonable price given the facts surrounding the current real estate market as well as that it is reported that town sewer is about 1200 feet short of the sites.
The acquisition could be financed by a revenue bond rather than a general obligation bond since the sale of graves could provide sufficient cash flow to pay for the property.
