Land designated for a new city cemetery has been released for other uses.
“In 1994, the City Council of the day designated a portion of land on Gladstone Avenue South for future cemetery development,” explained Darcy McLeod, Director of Community Development, Parks & Recreation at the regular meeting of Yorkton Council last Tuesday, Feb. 21.
The resolution designating the land for use as a future cemetery was made in August of 1994.
“This parcel of land was not registered with the Province as a Cemetery but has since been used as a Parks storage compound. A building was relocated there in 1997 for future use as a Cemetery office and small equipment storage. It has since been used as parks storage and a portion is also rented as storage for the Yorkton United Football Club,” said McLeod.
Subsequent work by the City has deemed the existing cemetery sufficient for decades to come, said McLeod.
“In 2011, a conceptual study found that an expansion to the existing Cemetery would meet the after death care needs of our community for the next 30 years, freeing up the proposed Gladstone Cemetery location for other future development. The expansion will be completed this year with the intention of selling plots sometime in 2017. A future shop and storage compound is planned to accommodate all Cemetery operating requirements on-site. Once this shop and compound are completed, or the Gladstone parcel is otherwise developed or sold, the Gladstone compound will be decommissioned and storage relocated to the Cemetery compound,” he explained.
“Since the expansion is near completion administration believes it is acceptable to release the Gladstone property from its designated use as a cemetery, making it available for other development. In order to do this Council is required to by resolution, approve the removal of the Cemetery designation for this piece of land.”
Council was unanimous in supporting removal of the cemetery designation from the land parcel making it available for other development purposes.
