CENTERVILLE—City officials are beginning the process of acquiring property to develop a second city cemetery. The current cemetery which is more than 150 years old is completely sold out. In November Centerville residents gave their approval  to bond for the project, which is expected to cost up to $7 million, in a narrow 56 percent majority. 

First up is finding a suitable property; the city needs 5 to 7 acres. While there doesn’t appear to be a parcel that size on the market in Centerville currently, city officials are hoping they will be able to approach landowners in the area who may be willing to help them out. One possibility the city is looking at is developing the cemetery only as needed which means they could leave most of the property available for farming or compatible uses until then. 

“I don’t anticipate us developing the full parcel out of the gate,” Council member George McEwan said. “I see no reason, especially where we sit on water right now in the state of Utah, to grass in three or four acres that we’re not doing anything with.” 

City officials anticipate that initially there will be an above-average demand for burial sites as those who have not been able to purchase them in recent years or those who wish to secure plots for their future use do so. Traditionally, about 80 plots were sold each year, Cemetery Director Bruce Cox said. 

“With population trends, burial plots along the Wasatch Front are going to be an extreme premium,” McEwan said. “I don’t see us not selling them.”

City Manager Brant Hanson requested the city hire a consultant with experience in property acquisition to help with the project. The city council is expected to make a selection this month. City council members had expressed a wish to see development of the cemetery begin this summer, but it may be a tight timetable.

One ‘tool’ which may not be on the table is the use of eminent domain (commonly known as condemnation) which most of the city council seems opposed to. It might be something they would consider in very narrow circumstances, such as a need to acquire a small piece of property to access a larger acreage, but only then, Council member Bill Ince said. 

Still, using eminent domain may be necessary if they cannot find a landowner willing to sell the city what it needs, McEwan said. 

“Eminent domain is the appropriate tool because it exists for the purpose of making sure you serve the citizens as a whole, not just an individual property owner,” he said. “Sometimes an individual property owner has to be inconvenienced or compensated for the greater community.”

“To me, our duty is if we believe the cemetery is necessary to get the cemetery that costs the least for the money that we have,” he said.

The city council is still considering how much to charge for the burial spaces, but all agree that the $600 charged for spaces in the city cemetery when they were available is too little. Council members said to a certain extent residents are willing to pay whatever it takes to get them a spot in a cemetery in Centerville. Council member Robin Mecham related the experience of a resident who recently approached the city looking for a plot to place a headstone on but was turned down because they were all sold.

“I know people who have come to me, they’re willing to do anything if they can have a plot there, pay anything,” she said. “Even the man that came with a headstone wanting to put it in now, he’s willing to pay; he just wants to be able to do it,” she said.

“This looks to me like we could almost double [the former $600 fee] that and still be in the ballpark,” she said referring to cemetery costs of other Davis communities shared by Cox. “I think our residents would prefer to have it doubled than not have it at all.”

At their Feb. 1 meeting, the city council had previously discussed and eliminated the possibility of building micro cemeteries on smaller lots in the city since they have proven to be costly to maintain.

The city council gave Hanson their approval to solicit a consultant to help with the process and urged him to proceed quickly so that they could begin considering appropriate parcels.