Graveside decor raises concern
Complaints about decorated graves in Palmerston North’s lawn cemetery have prompted mayor Grant Smith to ask for a review to be fast-tracked.
Smith said he had received about a dozen complaints from Kelvin Grove Cemetery visitors upset about the standard of nearby grave decorations.
‘‘People paint things in funny colours, there’s lots of glitter in the children’s area, and it creates angst for the plot owners next door.’’
Smith said he had every sympathy for people going through a difficult time of grieving, but the council had become so loose with its rules that it ‘‘annoys more people than we perceived we were helping’’.
When the Cemeteries and Crematorium bylaw was last reviewed in 2013, councillors were persuaded by grieving mum Julie Hogan to give people five years to garden and decorate gravesites before they had to revert to lawn.
The councillors did not want to impose any rules in the children’s area, where families have planted gardens, set up little playgrounds and placed toys and ornaments.
Council assets officer Bryan Way said he was pleased the bylaw would be reviewed sooner rather than later.
He said comments about decorated graves ranked among the most frequently asked questions from cemetery visitors, at number five, after inquiries about how to find a particular grave and questions about pricing and the availability of ash plots.
People wanted to know why decorated graves were allowed in a lawn cemetery.
Way said the practice of laying decorations on gravesites had first been allowed during the couple of months after a burial, before the soil had settled enough and been topped up so it could be grassed over.
He said some people wanted to continue tending the graves for longer, so staff recommended a year as a reasonable time, after which the decorations should be cleared and grass sown.
Hogan’s submission saw the time frame extended out to five years.
In another part of the review, Smith said he wanted headstone inscription rules to be tightened up.
That followed a controversy in 2015 when song titles including an obscenity were engraved on the back of Vincent Drummondpaulo’s headstone, offending the family tending the grave it backed on to.
Drummond-paulo’s mother Jeanna Scott said since they paid for the headstone, they should be able to inscribe whatever they liked on it.
The offending word remains on the headstone.
She called the notion of tighter regulations around gravesite decorations ‘‘ridiculous’’.
She had herself just recently put a small fence around her son’s grave and planted flowers.
‘‘It’s eerie going up there but having to go up there and just see grass ... that’s going a bit over the top, that is.’’
Smith said the vagueness of the bylaw had contributed to that situation. ‘‘Our bylaw is very, very loose compared to what other councils do, and we need to tighten it up.
‘‘It allows our cemetery to become a very untidy place.’’
Way said the extended time allowed for grave decorating posed operating issues at the cemetery, and added to costs.
A ride-on mower could not be used on berms where it had to work around grave gardens, and a hand mower had to be used in those areas.
It was also difficult to bring in a digger for new graves opposite a decorated grave.
New areas of the cemetery had been opened up earlier than planned to accommodate the grave decorating practice.
The council voted unanimously at its monthly meeting on Monday to bring forward the bylaw review. It had been programmed to be considered in the first half of 2018. The resolution means it will now be reviewed in the second half of 2017.