Officials in Elon hope that a newly-approved price hike for grave plots will seal the lid on a buying frenzy that has consumed much of the available space in the town’s Magnolia cemetery.
During a regularly-scheduled meeting on Monday, Elon’s town council voted to charge the town’s residents $800 for burial space rather than the $600 they had previously paid for their own patch of ground while they raised the rate for non-residents from $1,200 to $2,500 a plot.
The council approved this markup by a margin of 5-to-0 in response to a run on burial plots that the town’s municipal staff had brought to the notice of Elon’s decision makers on August 13.
When he first broached issue two weeks ago, Elon’s town manager Richard Roedner bewailed that the town had just 80 unclaimed spaces left in the cemetery. By Monday, Roedner acknowledged that the continuing interest from buyers was causing the cemetery’s remaining real estate to be gobbled up.
“We’ve sold over 14 in the last two weeks,” the town manager alerted the council that evening.
“I literally sold eight on Friday,” added Elon’s municipal clerk Kathleen Patterson, “and we’ve made two appointments today [to show burial plots to potential buyers].”
Roedner proceeded to blame recent news coverage for the latest spike in demand. He conceded, however, that the underlying reason for the ongoing splurge was the relatively low rates that the town had been charging for its burial plots.
Roedner went on to present the council with some price comparisons to underscore the affordable costs of Elon’s burial plots. These figures revealed that other communities in Alamance and Guilford counties were selling cemetery space to their own residents at rates ranging from $750 in Burlington to $1,200 in Greensboro. Meanwhile, out-of-towners can purchase burial plots for $1,500 in Mebane and Greensboro, $2,500 in Graham, while in Burlington, they can’t buy their way into the city’s municipal cemeteries at any price. Roedner noted that, Elon by contrast, was marketing grave plots to residents for $600 and to out-of-towners for $1,200.
“So, of the neighboring communities that have cemeteries,” he added, “we have the lowest prices for both residents and for non residents.”
In light of these latest revelations from Roedner, councilman Randy Orwig suggested that the town should jack up its rates for out-of-town residents rather than exclude them entirely from the town’s cemetery.
“The reason I say we don’t just disallow nonresidents,” the councilman said, “is that there are people who grew up in Elon and moved away, and as they’re getting closer to end of life, they want to be buried here, and they’d be willing to pay for it.”
Orwig went on to suggest a new out-of-town rate of $2,500, which easily won over the rest of council. Its members also agreed to implement a more modest price hike on the town’s own residents, who will now have to pay $800 for a single burial plot in the Magnolia cemetery.
The council voted 5-to-0 to enact these price increases, which took effect Tuesday.
