FERGUS — Belsyde Cemetery is set to expand as staff says the amount of available burial plots continues to dwindle.
Presenting an update on the expansion of Belsyde Cemetery's Block D at a Centre Wellington council meeting earlier this week, engineering services coordinator Adam Dickieson said the township is currently only offering time-of-need sales until more become available as the remaining burial plots are "significantly low."
In an emailed statement, Dickieson said 21 unsold burial plots remain for sale at Belsyde Cemetery. For cremation, there are 99 Columbarium niches and 169 in-ground burial plots currently available.
To address the need for more burial plots, Dickieson said the township plans to expand Block D, the only remaining undeveloped area located in the southeastern corner of Belsyde Cemetery, adjacent to the most recent expansion, which saw 84 additional single plots added to Block D in 2020.
Construction is anticipated in Summer 2025, once a design that includes the detailed layout and construction requirements is completed and the work is tendered, said Dickieson.
The 2025 upgrades are anticipated to add between 85 to 95 burial plots to Block D.
A report on the project said the 2025 construction is proposed to be funded through a budget request of $120,000 in the draft 2025 Capital Budget.
"The general intent of this project is to work from the two existing rows...and work towards the west," said Dickieson at the meeting. "And we're going to attempt to create as many new burial lots as our 2025 budget will allow."
As Block D is "pretty much the only undeveloped area remaining" at Belsyde, staff are in the process of determining the limits that can be expanded into next.
"Every year, we take a hard look at how things are moving in both the cemeteries and what we have left, and where the demands are in the different types of memorialization," said Dickieson at the meeting.
When asked what will happen when Block D is at capacity, Dickieson referred to the Belsyde Cemetery Master Plan, which was completed in 2015 and predicts the remaining available cemetery lands will be built out by 2038.
"Future expansion requirements in Block D will be identified and considered through the annual budget process," said staff in the report.
Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.
