Board OKs appraisal for abandoned cemetery

Valuation could be next step in acquisition process

TOWAMENCIN » Plans for Towamencin to take over ownership of an abandoned cemetery have moved another step ahead.

The township’s supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to seek an appraisal of that property, the next step toward a possible takeover.

“In August, the board authorized staff to determine the process it would take to acquire the abandoned cemetery behind the Holiday Inn,” said supervisors Chairman Chuck Wilson.

The cemetery is located off of Sumneytown Pike near the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and township officials said in August that while a local volunteer group has been maintaining it, the current ownership is unclear, since records indicate the cemetery last belonged to a church that went defunct sometime in the 1920s.

Wilson said Wednesday night that staff have recommended following a similar procedure to acquire that parcel as they did when acquiring the Tennis-Lukens Cemetery on Allentown Road, which has since been designated “Veterans Memorial Park” and which is currently the subject of a master plan being developed to spell out future uses.

“When there’s no owner, the only method left to us to acquire it, is eminent domain,” said solicitor Jack Dooley.

“The first step in that, is to obtain an approval to get a certified appraiser to tell us what the cemetery is worth, and that is what was done at Tennis-Lukens,” he said.

Since state law limits uses that can be done with a cemetery, “that appraisal came in at a very, very low figure” for the Tennis-Lukens site, the attorney added.

“We still need to get that done, so we can incorporate that in the declaration of taking. And you may wonder, ‘How do we serve that?’ We serve

it by publication,” he said.

If no owner can be found, the township can post that notice on the property and publish legal notices and move ahead from there, Dooley said, adding that he had spoken with Souderton-based Indian Valley Appraisal Company, which provided an estimated cost of between $1,200 and $2,000 to do the assessment.

Supervisor Laura Smith asked what happens after the township secures an appraisal and no owner is found: “If we don’t know who the owner is, who do we pay?” Dooley answered that the funds would have to be set aside, but not ultimately spent during the process.

“If the owner came forward, that’d be nice. It would make this whole process easier,” he said.

The board then voted unanimously to authorize staff to proceed with the appraisal and the acquisition. Towamencin’s supervisors next meet at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 27 at the township administration building, 1090 Troxel Road; for more information visit www.Towamencin.org.