Tarpon increases rates at cemetery

Burial plots at Cycadia Cemetery are now $980, up from $450. City commissioners also voted to allow only residents and their immediate families to be buried there.

By KATHERINE GAZELLA, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 21, 2001

TARPON SPRINGS -- After talking about expanding Cycadia Cemetery and raising rates for burial plots as high as $1,200, city officials have decided to institute a smaller rate increase and add burial spaces without buying additional land.

Burial plots are now $980, up from the longstanding fee of $450. A charge for opening and closing costs has been added, ranging from $795 to $945, with the higher rates for holidays and weekends. City commissioners also voted Tuesday night to allow only residents and their immediate families to be buried at the city-run cemetery, effective immediately.

Commissioners decided not to expand to an adjacent property but to allow for expansion within the current boundaries of the cemetery.

The city now will allow the use of 1,200 lawn crypts, which are mausoleum-style vaults that are buried beneath the ground. The crypts allow for burial spaces where the ground normally would be too shallow for graves.

Charges for the lawn crypts will be $2,300 for a single or $4,100 for a double slot, plus an opening and closing fee.

Commissioners also approved the creation of 250 burial spaces for cremated remains and a 24- by 24-foot garden in which ashes can be scattered. Without any of the additions, the cemetery would have been down to about 200 burial spaces.

Use of the scatter garden will cost between $250 and $400, and a burial space for cremated remains will cost $350 plus an opening and closing fee of $250 to $400.

"I think everything really came out good for the community," said funeral home director Thomas Dobies, who advised the city on some of the changes and recommended the use of lawn crypts. "Charges have increased; but like everything else, what hasn't?"

Commissioners in recent weeks decided something had to be done because the cemetery is almost sold out of burial plots. When word of the shortage spread, as well as the possibility of making the unsold plots available only to residents and their immediate families, many of the remaining plots were snatched up.

City officials also decided something had to be done about the price of burial plots, which was much lower than at many area cemeteries, because funds must be raised to pay for the cemetery beyond the time when all the plots are sold.

Only Commissioner Karen Brayboy voted against the changes.

"I still think we're raising the rate just a bit too high," she said. "A lot of our people can't afford that."

The history of Cycadia Cemetery goes back to 1887, when an early settler named Viola Keeney Beekman donated a small plot of land for a cemetery.

She and other members of the Women's Town Improvement Association, organized in the early days of Tarpon Springs, used a mule-drawn wagon to transport roses, plants and trees to the burial grounds. They named the land Cycadia Cemetery for the cycad trees, also known as sago palms, planted along the original road.

-- Staff writer Katherine Gazella can be reached at (727) 445-4182 or gazella@sptimes.com.

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