A municipal cemetery that offers grave plots at prices to die for has presented a bit of a conundrum for the members of Elon’s town council.
Earlier this week, the council engaged in a spirited discussion about how best to manage the space left in Elon’s Magnolia Cemetery, whose affordable rates have apparently led to a surge in demand for its burial plots.
Elon’s town manager Richard Roedner initially unearthed this dilemma on Tuesday when he notified the town’s leaders about the diminishing number of unclaimed plots that remain within this publicly-owned burial ground.
“Right now, we’re down to about 80 plots in Magnolia Cemetery,” Roedner explained during the council’s latest regularly-scheduled meeting that evening. “Over the last year, we’ve sold about 20 or 25 of them…and unless we want to buy land for a new cemetery, we’re going to run out of room.”
The prospect of a second municipal cemetery was more or less dead on arrival with Elon’s town council. Its members were nevertheless eager to find some way to address the space shortage that the town manager had brought to their attention.
In his report to the council, Roedner had largely attributed the cemetery’s space shortage to the “competitive” rates of its burial plots. Yet, the simple expedient of a price increase found little support from the council.
Monti Allison, the town’s mayor pro tem, warned that rumblings of a rate hike might ultimately lead to a run on the cemetery’s remaining plots.
“Those 80 sites are eventually going to be sold,” Allison added, “and if you raise the price, people are going to start buying them before the prices go up.”
Meanwhile, Elon’s mayor Emily Sharpe encouraged the council to consider restrictions on who can purchase a burial plot so that the remaining spaces aren’t snapped up so quickly.
“A significant number of the sales in the past year have been [to people from] out of town because our prices are so good,” she explained. “Going forward, I think we should restrict it to residents, although I’m also okay extending it to staff members.”
Much of the council seemed comfortable with Sharpe’s suggestion to limit the sale of burial plots to residents and employees of the town. This proposed restriction nevertheless raised some qualms for councilman Randy Orwig, who pointed out that there are expats from Elon who may want to return home for their postmortem repose.
“Ultimately, I’m in favor of limiting it to residents,” he acknowledged. “But I would like to find some technicality [for former residents who] have resided in Elon for so many years.”
In the end, the council didn’t take any formal action to preserve the cemetery’s unclaimed real estate. Sharpe nevertheless instructed Roedner to draw up a plan for a price hike that would apply only to out-of-town residents based on the consensus that seemed to come out of the council’s discussion.
