Lavonia City Council Considers Amendment to Cemetery Ordinance

Lavonia City fathers are looking at revising Lavonia’s cemetery ordinance, largely due to a new mausoleum that was recently built in Burgess City Cemetery.

At their work session last week, Mayor Courtney Umbehant said the City cemetery ordinance currently has no specifications for mausoleums.

Umbehant pointed out the mausoleum that was put up was made of high-quality granite and very well constructed.

It is the only one of its kind in the cemetery but he added that more mausoleums are likely to go up in the future and the city needs to have some ordinance that outlines what can and cannot be built.

The current ordinance allows one body per plot and the Mayor recommended that mausoleums follow the same standard.

There are already several mausoleums in the cemetery that are very old and built of brick and cement and a couple have fallen into disrepair.

Under the proposed revised ordinance only granite mausoleums would be allowed in the future and would have to be built to a certain size and material specifications before the Cemetery Board would consider approving them.

But the mayor also recommended putting in a separate area for columbariums, which are mausoleums for urns containing cremated remains.

No vote was taken and staff is continuing to work on how to construct a revised ordinance regarding mausoleums.