City of Bismarck Poised To Enter The Cremation Business.

Fairview Cemetery in Bismarck was established in the 1880s and it's taken 140 years for the place to get a new plat.  What's a plat?  I don't know...but these folks did.

Platting is the way in which property is divided, through laying out on paper or mapping each piece of land. A recorded plat indicates lots, building lines, easements and rights-of-way, flood areas, boundary markers, and other permanent attachments to land.

It has all the charms of figuring out what is a mill levy.  Basically, platting can reestablish the usage for a certain area.  This all first came to my attention in a request from Bismarck's Community Development Department

 Fairview Cemetery, Vertin and the City of Bismarck are requesting approval of a zoning change from the A – Agricultural and MA – Industrial zoning districts to the P – Public, RT – Residential and MA – Industrial zoning districts and a major subdivision final plat for Fairview Cemetery Addition. This action would plat the cemetery, replat an adjacent City-owned lot to improve access to this area, and create two new lots within the cemetery property for the construction of new related uses to the cemetery. 

"New related uses" you say.  It's land use is currently designated simply as cemetery.  These changes aren't some kind of sneaky plan by the city, Back in May 2021 the Planning and Zoning Commission approved the plat proposal. Letters were sent to homeowners in the area and notices were posted in the Tribune.

Obviously, I'm getting at the point that the new uses would be a crematorium and a mortuary...but another golf course?

 

Adjacent uses include a golf course to the west, single-family and multi-family residential to the north across East Century Avenue, industrial and rural residential to the east, and undeveloped A – Agriculturally zoned land to the south.

Okay, so that was that adjacent-use statement came from the September 8 request which went on to be presented at a Fall Board of City Commissioners meeting.

KFYR-TV is reporting that the Bismarck Planning and Zoning Commission approved a special use permit for a crematorium that will be completed within two years.

Now about that golf course...