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Commission, with residents’ help, defeats crematory plan
By DAVE SHELTON
Article published on Thursday, Oct. 5, 2006 |
LARGO – Plans for a crematorium in Serenity Gardens cemetery on Wilcox Road were put to rest after nearby residents stormed City Hall Tuesday night.
At its Oct. 3 meeting the City Commission rejected the site plan submitted by Service Corporation International for a crematorium it wanted to put on property it owns as Moss Feaster Funeral Homes. The vote was 5-1 with Commissioner Harriet Crozier, who recently retired from the company, abstaining.
Voting took place at 1:15 a.m. Wednesday after the commission had heard more than six hours of testimony.
Scores of residents passionately pleaded their case against the proposal despite intimidating questioning by some of the funeral home company’s lawyers who had presented three hours of testimony by experts who supported attorney Ed Armstrong’s claim that the application met all city regulations and had to be approved.
The experts included the crematorium architect, a real estate appraiser, an environmental scientist, the owner of the company that would have built the three furnaces for the crematorium, and a land use planner.
Some 30 residents, many waving cards showing they were speaking on behalf of another half-dozen residents, spoke against the plan. Among them were three members of the city Planning Board and former Commissioner Martin Shelby.
“I know what city codes say,” Shelby said. “But they say a crematory is an allowable use in an institutional zone, but that doesn’t mean it’s a required use.”
In tears, Robin Grondin told how she bought her house on Mia Circle last year but wasn’t warned about the plans for a crematorium.
“This was to be my paradise,” she sobbed. “With a crematorium, my paradise will be gone.”
Stanley Gams said “this idea might be legal but it’s just not right to put an industrial human remains incinerator in the middle of a residential area.”
He told of visiting an Orlando crematory and talking to one of its neighbors. He said the man told him it smelled “kinda like a barbecue.”
Gams accused SCI of being “out-of-town money-grabbers.”
This claim was pointedly directed by another resident directly to funeral home founder George Feaster who was sitting in the front row listening to the testimony. Sam Maisano, of Silver Oak Circle, told Feaster to take the plans out to Interstate 75 where a crematorium would be more appropriate and more successful.
Feaster quietly rose from his seat and left. Outside, he said he was rattled by the personal attack and disappointed at the opposition to the company’s plan.
“I live here, too,” he said. “I think some people forget that.”
Robert Hunsicker, a member of the city planning board, objected to crematorium “experts” who had said many of the 10 crematoriums in Pinellas County have operated many years in residential communities without complaints.
Another area resident, Kelly Scolaro, said studies have linked mercury, a known emission of crematoriums, to mental illness and birth defects.
Two women claimed their property values have already been hurt by the proposal.
City Planning Board Chairman Cheryl Bowman, who lives close to the proposed site, said that when she told a prospective buyer of her home about the proposed crematorium, the sale was lost.
Deborah Roberts said that when she told an appraiser evaluating her home for a new mortgage about the proposal, he lowered the home’s appraised value. She claimed he told her some mortgage companies might not even finance her house because of the crematorium.
Steven Fairchild, real property specialist for Pinellas County Schools said plans could eventually put a new school of up to 1,500 pupils on its 30-acre tract that would be just a football field away from the crematorium. He asked that the city require an “air emissions dispersion model” that would show where pollutants from the crematorium could land.
The sole vote in favor of the crematorium came from Commissioner Gay Gentry.
“People are asking me to do something that is scary and dangerous,” Gentry said. She said abridging the funeral homes’ property rights by denying the application could set a precedent in which the very property owners who opposed the crematory might one day find their own rights in danger.
“I don’t think it’s compatible,” said Commissioner Gigi Arntzen, saying she didn’t understand why Moss Feaster didn’t simply expand their National Cremation Services facility on East Bay Drive or put the proposed new facility farther away from nearby homes.
“I’m stuck on environmental issues,” said Commissioner Rodney Woods pointing to long-term effects of crematory emissions. “No one is able to assure me, this community, that nothing is going to happen. This is a great concern to me.”
Mayor Pat Gerard said she didn’t like the idea of concentrating the emissions from seven other crematories in Pinellas County into Largo as Moss Feaster had planned. She added that the size of the building, despite efforts to give it residential features and landscaping, didn’t fit into the community of much smaller homes.
After the meeting residents said they were happy with the decision but worried that the battle wasn’t yet over. Moss Feaster attorney Ed Armstrong said all of the company’s options would now be reviewed but that a decision on taking the issue to court would be up to Serenity Gardens manager Rick Chesler.
A court stenographer recorded the entire proceeding and Serenity Gardens attorneys asked several residents about their expertise to support their claims.
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Article published on Thursday, Oct. 5, 2006
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