Wendell hears detailed master plan for Green Mount Cemetery; consultants recommend cremation garden, road changes and fee updates

Consultants presented a master plan for Green Mount Cemetery and answered questions from the Wendell Town Board of Commissioners during the board’s regular September meeting.

The plan, prepared by consultants hired with the town’s capital improvement funds, lays out changes to the cemetery’s circulation, burial options, recordkeeping and monument care, and recommends multiple modest fee and process changes to reduce administrative burden while preserving the site.

Consultant Larry Sloan, who described the plan’s financial and operational findings, said the cemetery “will have a 35‑year active life, without question” under current burial trends and the town’s inventory. He told commissioners the site, founded about 1907, is roughly six acres and has ample capacity in newer sections, while older sections contain roughly 120 unsold spaces the consultants believe are usable for cremation burials.

Sloan and Wendy Fry of WC Fry Design proposed several near‑term changes: allow single‑grave purchases instead of requiring buyers to take two spaces; discontinue the town’s $600 memorial deposit and the symbolic deed form; add a small cremation garden with above‑ground niches in the newest section; and…