Grey County is redesignating some land in Dundalk to allow for future residential development.
County council approved altering its official plan to redesignate an unused vacant part of the Maple Grove Cemetery in Dundalk from rural and hazard lands to primary settlement area during a meeting on April 11.
This comes after Southgate requested the county adjust land-use permissions on the open portion of the cemetery.
Planner Becky Hillyer says, “The application proposes to redesignate about 0.87 hectares, or 2.15 acres of land.”
Currently, only about 3.35 hectares of land are in use on the 5.6 hectare property. The remaining 2.3 hectares of land on the northern part of the property were for planning a cemetery expansion.
A report from Hillyer says, “however, due to changing burial practices, township staff have undertaken an internal review of burial trends and have suggested that the vacant lands are currently surplus to their needs.”
She says while they did not receive many complaints, one person expressed concern, which was addressed at a public meeting in February.
“That person had indicated just some kind of concerns and reservations about protecting the integrity and sanctity of that cemetery space,” says Hillyer. “We acknowledge at the time of a draft plan subdivision in future we could look at some sort of buffering options between the cemetery and any planned residential subdivision.”
The report from Hillyer did not mention any current plans for a subdivision for this area.