By Don Patterson
Staff Reporter
With 17 years of burial space left in the Okotoks cemetery, a group of Okotoks residents heard the Town needs to plan for more space for residents’ eternal rest.
“You’re a young community… so you better not overlook land use,” said Rob Hilton, a cemetery planning consultant, during a public open house on the cemetery enhancement plan held at The Station on April 24.
He said the cemetery will run out of room for casket burials by about 2025, and added it’s important to look to future needs for space.
He said 60 per cent of people choose casket burial, however, the number of people opting to be cremated is on the rise.
Hilton said the Town could make a number of improvements to the cemetery’s cremation area to make room for the growing number of people choosing this option for internment.
Suggestions to improve the area include paving sidewalks, adding more columbariums, scattering space, burial plots for ashes and building a small pond. The cremation area could be upgraded in two phases.
Because of the higher density of internment in the cremation area, he recommended providing parking spaces around it. He said it will also keep more vehicles off the cemetery’s roads during funeral processions.
According to Hilton, this is also an opportunity to beautify the cemetery with gardens.
“We’re saying, let’s dress it up a little and make it more appealing,” he said.
Four concept plans were drawn up, with the major differences being the location of a new, second access location and a number of smaller internal roads that are proposed to be reclaimed. In two options, the second access is located on a curve in Westland Street. In the others, the new entrance is proposed at two different locations on Westridge Drive.
Hilton said the key for a cemetery to be sustainable in the future is its maintenance care fund. When a cemetery is full, he said the Town will have to be able to maintain it and earnings from the fund will cover the expenses. However, he said the Town’s fund may not be adequate to care for the cemetery when it’s full.
Okotoks Municipal Operations manager Dave Robertson said it’s hoped the cemetery will be easier to maintain as a result of the study.
“Instead of leaving the cemetery like we’ve done for years, there’s a recognition of the need to prepare for future years,” he said.
Robertson said he would like to get a first phase of work underway this spring.
He said the MD of Foothills should be involved because many MD residents are interned at the cemetery and future expansion may require its participation.
If the cemetery needed to expand, Robertson said the natural choice would be to the west on land currently inside the MD. However, he said the Town may also have to investigate a new location altogether, possibly one located inside the MD.
“Our council and their council need to sit down and hash it out,” Robertson added.
The plan will be presented to town council on May 14.
Area resident Carrie Mathieson said her main concern is the proposed access on Westridge Drive and congestion on the road at peak traffic times.
She said there is already a lot of traffic in the area and is worried the road would be too congested during funerals.
“As a resident, we’d have a huge problem if you put the access on Westridge Drive,” said Mathieson.
Area resident Sandy Bruce agreed saying Westridge Drive is already busy and it may not be the best place for a new entrance to the cemetery.
“I think it’s important it’s well thought out before taking action,” he said.
Karen Peters, treasurer of the Okotoks Historical Society, said there are a number of unmarked burial sites and the society doesn’t want to see the spaces used for new burials.
“We don’t want them to reclaim open sites and have burials there,” she said.
Peter Driedger, president of the Okotoks Historical Society, said the society is planning a monument for the cemetery in memory of people who were buried in the cemetery but have no grave markers and said this is a good time to discuss it to have it included in the plan.
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