Recommended expansion plans for North Cowichan’s historic Mountain View Cemetery were sent back to staff for further review after a number of council members indicated they would prefer more green options at September’s committee of the whole meeting.
The 14-acre cemetery, located on the corner of Drinkwater Road and Somenos Road, is almost at capacity and the municipality is considering expanding into a new undeveloped area of the property that it also owns which is more than half the size of the existing cemetery.
Urban Systems was awarded a $75,000 contract from North Cowichan in 2021 to conduct a high-level review of current services and facilitate a thorough public engagement process, including future expansion concept designs, for the next 25 years at the cemetery.
At the September committee meeting, Urban Systems recommended a three-phase expansion plan over the 25 years, with the first phase expected to take place in approximately 10 years when the current cemetery reaches capacity.
While traditional burials and increasingly popular cremations will play a part in the cemetery’s future, each phase would add new services, such as green burials, scattering gardens, and double-depth burials.
Staff recommended that North Cowichan also establish a cemetery capital reserve fund and make annual contributions of $184,047, beginning in 2025 until 2034, to pay for the expansion costs.
After a discussion, Mayor Rob Douglas said, like a number of other council members, he’d like to see more of a focus on green, natural burials and scattering gardens.
“I’d be more interested in making the transition [to green burials] a bit quicker rather than continuing to focus on full burials, recognizing these would be a small percentage of the expansion plan, but would result in quite a few additional full-burial plots,” he said.
Council voted for the issue to be sent back to staff who will come back to a future meeting with more options to consider.
Mountain View Cemetery was founded by the Methodist Church in 1878, was transferred to the United Church in 1926 and then became the property of North Cowichan in 1962.
The cemetery, which is considered an important community asset that captures the history and unique rural community of North Cowichan, has impressive and expansive views of Mount Prevost and Mount Sicker, along with many other surrounding mountains.
North Cowichan currently offers various cemetery interment services that include, but are not limited to full burial plots, cremation plots, and columbaria niches, which are compartments within a structure that holds a person's cremated remains.
On average, and over the last 11 years, staff facilitate approximately 18 full burials and 44 cremation burials per year at the cemetery.
As the costs of traditional burial plots increase and land becomes scarce, Urban Systems concluded in its research that people are looking for more cost-effective alternatives.
With that, cemeteries are finding that providing a broader range of services enables them to meet more diverse needs and provide some affordable options.
Based on current demographics from Statistics Canada, the 65+ population accounted for approximately 28 per cent of the total population of North Cowichan in 2022, and is projected to increase to 34 per cent by 2047.
As a result of this demographic shift, it is projected that the annual mortality rate will increase on average by 2.3 per cent a year, from 359 deaths in 2022 to 819 deaths by 2047.
