Guelph-Eramosa has increased Rockwood Cemetery fees and councillor Louise Marshall is not happy about it.
“I remember when this was a local graveyard and we came to the council and … they said they couldn’t take it over and council tendered it; Woodlawn picked it up,” said Marshall.
“First thing that happened was prices went way up. Do we want to keep putting them up?”
At the March 7 council meeting at the Marden Community Centre parks and recreation director Robin Milne explained the fees had to go up in order to be able to pay for the cemetery once it’s full.
“The key here is that when this cemetery fills up the municipality is responsible for the care and maintenance,” he said.
“In order not to put a burden on the taxpayers we’re mandated by the province to create a perpetual care fund and within the Ontario Cemeteries Act it indicates what you can spend from that perpetual care fund.”
The municipality can only spend the interest to maintain the cemetery but the principle amount must remain intact. Because the cemetery is small the principal won’t grow unless the fees are increased.
The cemetery only has about 10 burials a year, Milne explained.
The interment rights will increase for a four-by-10 plot from $2,000 to $2,250 and for a two-by-two plot from $1,175 to $1,400.
In the same report Milne explained the fee structure for the township’s facilities and programing are in line with other neighboring municipalities, but the revenues for community centre rentals have remained static year over year.
He cited competition from the private sector, lack of hotel accommodations, high cost of taxi service to rural areas, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario requirements for licensed events and insurance requirements as potential reasons why the revenue has not increased.
Milne said it’s not necessary to have an increase in community centre rental fees to meet the municipality’s projected revenue.
“The rationale behind this is I don’t think we want to price ourselves out of the market,” he said.
“I think the price point that we have now compared to neighbouring municipal comparators is on par.”
Sports field rental fees increased 2% yet the rental fees for the indoor field at the Royal Distributing Athletic and Performance Centre did not increase at all because it was on the high end of “like” facilities found regionally.
Milne also explained there is a new fee added to the structure for the enabling gardens at both the Marden Community Centre and Rockmosa Community Centre. The rental will cost $194.15, the same as renting a pavilion at Marden.
“If somebody wanted to rent it for a private wedding or a baby shower or a wedding shower, whatever … we have a fee that we can say. ‘yeah you’re able to rent that exclusively, this is the fee,’” Milne explained.
“In terms of maintenance, to prep that for a function, we consider it to be about the same as what it takes to prep a pavilion here and so that was the fee that we’re showing in the fees bylaw.”
All of council, excluding Marshall, voted in favour of the new fee structures.
