Tim Dinan said there is a lot of incorrect information out there about crematoriums.
“It doesn’t belong in an industrial park,” he said at the Bainbridge Island City Council meeting April 9. “They’re typically in residential areas.”
Dinan and his wife Alison own Hillcrest Cemetery and the Cook Family Funeral Home on BI. They are interested in building a crematorium here, but neighbors are objecting.
“It should be a no-brainer,” Lisa Macchio also said during public comments at the meeting. “It should be a prohibited use.”
Macchio, who spent years on the city Planning Commission, said that’s a problem with city code, and it needs to be fixed. She said the city wastes too much time dealing with applications on uses that should be prohibited in the first place. Macchio said code isn’t clear on something like a crematorium because it hasn’t come up before in this fairly new city. “When something new comes up we have to adjust the code.”
Dinan countered that, “COVID made it very, very clear there was weaknesses in our system. It is needed.” And as population grows, it will be needed even more. He said any dangers of one are exaggerated. “If there’s a problem a computer shuts it down completely. We need to discuss this and find a solution.”
As for the council’s discussion on the issue, Councilmembers Kirsten Hytopoulos and Ashley Mathews pushed for an emergency moratorium on crematoriums. But the other councilmembers didn’t agree there was an emergency.
“We’re doing exactly what we’re not supposed to be doing,” Councilmember Clarence Moriwaki said, adding they were just supposed to decide if they wanted to talk about the issue at an upcoming meeting. He added any discussion that night would be emotional in reaction to opposition, rather than based on facts.
Mayor Joe Deets said he was annoyed. “This is not how we do things. We have a process. We’re not debating a moratorium tonight.”
Deputy mayor Jon Quitslund agreed. “I don’t see the emergency. The threat is really a long way off.” He said he knows people are upset, and that he “initially was opposed to the idea. But it’s a slanted playing field. We need to be fair to all parties in the dispute.” To agree to a moratorium he’d “need to know much more than I do now.”
Councilmember Leslie Schneider felt the same way. “Staff needs to come back with information for us so we can have a decent discussion.” She added she had an emotional experience with her father, and it was with a family-owned business with a residence right next door.
Hytopoulos is normally is a stickler about process, but she felt this was an emergency because if they wait an application could move forward.
“We should be doing this now before an application is submitted, and it gets too far down the road,” Mathews added.
Hytopoulos said, “If it was a rocket launch we would do it.”
That brought up another topic. Moriwaki said they should talk about guidelines on when emergency moratoriums should be allowed.
City manager Blair King said staff will return April 23 with a draft law on a moratorium and later they will come up with a plan to justify emergency moratoriums.
A city memo says a proposal to build a crematorium in a residential area on the south end of BI is poised to move forward but city code does not say if it is a permitted, prohibited or conditional use. Under a fairly new part of city code, planning director Patty Charnas determined it could be a major conditional-use process. Community members have expressed concern over her sole discretion in making the determination rather than submitting it to be reviewed by the Planning Commission and City Council in a public process.
Over the last several weeks, concerns have been raised regarding its appropriateness in a residential zone including potential toxicity of emissions, the volume of propane stored on site, traffic, noise and the potential impact to property values. Councilmembers have also been contacted by the applicants who have stated that community concerns are without merit and that there is a critical need for such a facility on BI.
