Largo facing tough decision on proposed crematorium
By DAVE SHELTON
Article published on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2006  |
LARGO – On Oct. 3 the City Commission will face one of its most intensely opposed decisions so far this year with little help last week from the city Planning Board.
While holding that the proposed Serenity Gardens Memorial Park Crematorium meets all city codes and would generate no dangerous pollutants, the planning board rejected a motion to recommend the proposal be approved. The planners felt it would be incompatible with the residential neighborhood surrounding it.
Even though no one would second a motion recommending the plan be rejected, the board’s attorney advised it had effectively made a decision by rejecting, by 4-3 vote, a motion to recommend it be approved.
Some 75 neighbors of the Wilcox Road cemetery turned out to urge the project be buried. One after another for nearly three hours they marched to the microphone of the standing-room-only meeting room, accusing the funeral home’s representatives of lying to hide plans for a 24-hour, 7 days a-week operation that would spew dangerous pollutants into the air and reduce their property values.
City Commissioners Mary Gray Black and Rodney Woods also sat in the audience, listening to the testimony that lasted until almost midnight.
Moss Feaster Funeral Homes owns the 46-acre tract of land zoned “Institutional” which contains the company’s funeral home, a 145-year-old cemetery, a mausoleum, two chapels and its administrative offices.
The company proposes a new building close to Wilcox Road to contain three “retorts” (cremation ovens), a cold storage vault for 100 bodies, storage space for hundreds of caskets and parking for its hearses.
Before opening the discussion Sept. 7, Planning Board Chairman Cheryl Bowman announced she couldn’t vote on the issue because she lives within 500 feet of the proposed crematorium. She said, however, that she would be allowed to take part in the debate.
Bowman’s neighbors then began their fight.
“I beg you to do something to stop this destruction of our neighborhood,” said Debra Roberts, of Mia Circle. “It’s all about the money. They (Moss Feaster) don’t care about our kids, our neighbors, our homes.”
Also of Mia Circle, Robert Lewis said the proposal’s use of trash bins, housing a fleet of vehicles, large garage doors and chimneys made it an industry, not an institutional business for which it is zoned.
Sherry Darroch said environmental scientists don’t know the long-term affects crematory emissions may have on people and that her family would be used in an “environmental experiment.”
Real estate agent Dorothy Schumann said a crematorium in Serenity Gardens would lower nearby property values.
But an inspector for Pinellas County’s air quality department countered the residents’ allegations, saying there are 17 cremation ovens now in Pinellas County and that they generate few complaints. Many years, he said, there have been no grievances filed.
The inspector, Peter Hessling, said that contrary to residents’ claims that tons of solids would be pumped into the air every day by a crematorium, such operations emit less than 5 ounces of solids each hour of operation. The most dangerous substance would be mercury from fillings in the body’s teeth, he said.
During 2002, he said, an estimated 17 pounds of mercury was put into the air in Pinellas County by the existing crematoriums. He said this isn’t considered a harmful amount and was less than that being emitted every day by electricity generating plants whether they were fueled by oil or coal.
On allegations that Moss Feaster would be bringing corpses from far beyond the Tampa Bay area, the funeral home’s attorney, Ed Armstrong, said they would only come from local residents.
Board member Steve Terepka apologized to Armstrong for catcalls and shouting by residents during the hearing when the attorney presented Moss Feaster’s arguments.
“In my four years on this board I’ve never seen such a public outcry about any application before us,” he said.
Board member Jim Pierce said “in 27 years I’ve heard so many people say they want to be good neighbors but I don’t think this applicant wants to be a good neighbor. I think they’re just saying ‘phooey’ with what the community wants.”
Bowman said the city’s zoning code “isn’t a perfect document. Just like the U.S. Constitution, it needs to be amended sometimes.”
She said it should restrict crematoriums to cemeteries larger than Serenity Gardens and require they be located as far from any residential zones as possible. She said there should also be regulations limiting noise and traffic.
Another board member, Jim McCurtain said that with Pinellas County being the most densely populated county in Florida, finding someplace for crematoriums outside of residential areas would be difficult.
Nick Bereznoff, another board member, said he felt neighbors were trying to force Moss Feaster to move its proposed operation to another neighborhood.
“Let them go over there and let those people deal with it,” he said is what he believed the residents were saying.
A slim majority of the board then voted to recommend to the City Commission that the crematorium would be incompatible, by a 3-2 vote.
In five other issues, the board unanimously rejected the resident’s claims that it would have a negative economic impact on the city, that it would emit harmful pollutants, that it doesn’t meet city codes, that it would increase the density of buildings in a flood zone and that it would be an eyesore.
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Article published on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2006
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