Carrboro Town Council approves Westwood Cemetery renovations, expansion

The Carrboro Town Council met on Sept. 19 to approve the new master plan for the Westwood Cemetery, a public cemetery located off of Davie Road.

Carter Van Dyke Associates presented at the meeting and said discussions about modernizing the cemetery began in 2020 when the council hired the firm. The council started reviewing the development plans in October 2022 and revisited them in June of this year.

Peter Fernandez, the president of CVDA, said during his presentation that he was tasked with finding how flexible the cemetery plans can be.

The plan proposes expanding into the open green space surrounding the current cemetery, reducing the size of the available recreational land.

CVDA provided an estimate at the meeting, stating that the changes to the cemetery will cost around $630,000 across two phases.

Phase 1 will consist of surveying and plotting, as well as the construction of a loop road. This phase also includes the placement of 631 additional conventional plots and allows green burials. Phase 2 involves more substantial construction, including landscaping, utilities, benches, an entrance sign, flagpoles, columbaria and walking paths.

To begin the placement of new plots, the Town must adapt its ordinance to officially allow to use the expanded land for more gravesites. Danny Nowell, a Carrboro Town Council member who spoke in favor of the plan’s approval at the meeting, said an amended ordinance could also include allow for green burials.

He said Phase 1 of the plan will be enacted within the year and budgeting for Phase 2 will take place over the next few years.

The new plan is larger than the compromise that council members generated at their last work session, Sammy Slade, a Carrboro Town Council member, said.

Some community members at the meeting said they felt the planning process was rushed and that they did not ask for alternative burial methods at the cemetery.

Carrboro Town Council member Randee Haven-O’Donnell said that though residents should have burial options, the plan was not discussed that way in June at the council work session.

“The options keep us in the cemetery business in a way that we might not have been planning for,” Haven-O'Donnell said.

Slade said the Town is running out of conventional burial plots and that land is hard to come by.

Old Carrboro Cemetery, the only other public cemetery in Carrboro, reached capacity in 2022. Westwood Cemetery is projected to reach capacity in the next few years.

"As cumbersome as it is, I sort of like the idea that Carrboro is an accessible place for people to be able to bury their families,” Nowell said.

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