The Chapel Hill Memorial Cemetery has ran out of standard burial spots. Although there are still approximately 80 cremation burial spots available, the town council has been planning new ways to increase space at the cemetery.

The Chapel Hill Town Council approved a proposed Columbarium Project to be added to the Memorial Cemetery at their meeting in late June.

Town Manager Roger Stancil presented the plan to have 3 above-ground vaults including 32 compartments each to hold erns, for a total of 96 additional burial spots.  The columbariums would be placed in the center of the cemetery in the plaza area.

“The center plaza area was sort of reserved for the Veterans Memorial Project and since then, the Veterans Memorial Committee has decided it would be more appropriate to place the Veterans Memorial Project at the Orange County site off of Homestead road which opened up the plaza to this collumbariam project,” Stancil said.

This project is proposed to cost about $100,000 for the 3 columbariams and the cost will be offset some by the fees of the cost per space.  The cost per space has not been set and is still under discussion.

Since the meeting in June, Stancil has been discussing the design plans with the Community Design commission and The Cultural Arts Commission.

The Cultural Arts Commission was scheduled to speak about their plans at the commission’s meeting last night. These plans will be reviewed by the Community Design Commission in October.  In addition to the Collumbariam project, town staff continues plans to propose a “scatter garden” that will be located towards the Fordham Blvd side of the Memorial Cemetery.  Stancil says he will bring all proposed ideas and plans to the council as soon as all questions and concerns the council had are resolved.