City plots path to ensure cemetery upkeep

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This article was published 09/11/2021 (1572 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE City of Winnipeg has a new financial plan to ensure its three cemeteries are maintained long after all plots are filled.

By 2045, the city will need to develop 10 to 12 more acres of land to keep up with demand at its Brookside, St. Vital and Transcona cemeteries, a new civic business plan notes.

It will need to develop and sell plots on 48 acres of land, raising another $29.3 million in maintenance fund contributions, to ensure it can permanently maintain the cemeteries and become financially self-sufficient.

“Before we run out of land, we’ll have enough money… to cover maintenance in perpetuity. It’s still decades away but… we will reach that point where the fund is large enough to cover maintenance of our cemeteries forever,” said Brett Shenback, cemeteries administrator.

Shenback said the goal will likely be reached in about a century. Currently, cemetery sales and some municipal tax revenue helps keep up the properties.

The three city cemeteries have a combined 271 acres of land, with 68 acres still available to be developed.

The city already has perpetual maintenance funds in place for its cemeteries, which were expected to reach $18.3 million for Brookside, $1.4 million for St. Vital and $980,000 for Transcona in 2021.

Cemetery sales contribute to those reserves. Under a city bylaw, up to 50 per cent of the interest each fund generates can be withdrawn each year to help cover maintenance costs.

Consultant GSP Group Inc./Hilton Landmarks also advised the city to consider some fee increases at its cemeteries, along with new surcharges for more time-consuming services (such as winter burial) and possible premiums for interment to non-Winnipeg residents.

While no exact fee hikes were proposed, higher prices should be considered, said Coun. Cindy Gilroy, property and development committee chairwoman.

“(We need to) make sure we’re self-sufficient and… that we are taking care of these cemeteries,” Gilroy said Monday.

The consultant also recommended the city develop a one-acre green burial area at Brookside or St. Vital and a one-acre pet cemetery at Transcona.

Shenback said environmentally conscious Winnipeggers are increasingly asking about green burial options, though others still know little about the process.

“It’s definitely something we’re interested in and may move forward on,” he said.

To be deemed “green,” burials must ensure bodies can return to the earth quickly, while being as gentle as possible to the environment.

While Winnipeg does allow some green burial practices, including the use of biodegradable caskets, it doesn’t offer the most stringent form of the practice. In those cases, burial lands would also be protected, sometimes through a long-term “conservation easement.”

Shenback said plenty of planning would be needed before the city could add pet or green burial service.

“It would be an entirely new line of business for us, so we’d need to carefully consider it and make sure it makes sense for us to do,” he said.

Gilroy said she believes the city should explore green burial, both for the environmental benefit and to ensure public cemeteries remain comparable to private ones.

“It’s supposed to be more efficient and sustainable,” she said. “We have to make sure that we’re keeping pace with other cemeteries as well, on what products that they’re offering.”

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga