Seven to eight years - that is how long the capacities at the Neufahrn cemetery should easily last.
And yet you have a problem.
Neufahrn
- For years, strenuous considerations as to whether the Neufahrn cemetery should be expanded in the near future can be shelved for the coming years.
As a current inventory that was presented to the Personnel, Social and Cultural Committee on Monday shows, the current capacities are still sufficient for "at least seven to eight years," as department head Michaela Wiencke-Bimesmeier reported.
Wiencke-Bimesmeier reported that during site visits over the past few weeks, the data entered were compared with reality.
The result: The demand for large family graves has decreased significantly in recent years.
The existing 172 free graves will therefore not be needed in the coming years.
The number of urn burials is increasing continuously.
And the demand for tree graves is now also high, as many citizens choose a burial option that does not mean high maintenance costs for their relatives.
The classic family grave is now more of a discontinued model
And another development: graves are increasingly being returned where the rest period has expired.
The family grave that has been used and cared for by a family for decades is no longer the standard case, said Wiencke-Bimesmeier.
A regulation that is anchored in the still valid cemetery statutes is problematic: According to this, when buying a grave, the free choice of all free grave sites is allowed.
This leads to an increasing number of free graves in the middle of grave fields, but on the other hand new areas have to be opened, although there are still enough graves available in the already occupied cemetery sections.
That is not always positive for the overall picture of the cemetery.
New cemetery and burial statutes are expected in June
How can one counteract this development that citizens purchase new graves when buying graves instead of buying abandoned grave sites? The administration had considered creating an incentive by reducing the grave fee to purchase graves that would be available after the rest period had expired. Perhaps, according to some of the local councils, one has to exercise some coercion. In any case, a revised cemetery and burial statute should be presented in June.
In the new part of the cemetery there is another section with 94 row graves, which are currently not being re-occupied.
Urn steles and urn walls can be added, a section with 80 graves is already planned for urn burial.
Beate Frommhold-Buhl (SPD) found all these figures "reassuring" because - contrary to what was thought years ago - there was "much more time" before the cemetery had to be expanded.
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