Marianne Merten
Want to find a peaceful final resting place with 24-hour security, rolling lawns, tree-lined paths, water features and a chapel? Memory Lane, the Western Cape’s first private cemetery, may be the answer.
At present the 15ha stretch of land on the rural outskirts of Durbanville in the Mother City’s northern suburbs is still an empty plot against the backdrop of a peninsula mountain range.
But if the developers have their way, and Cape Town unicity town planners approve, the land will be converted into a tranquil memorial park open for business as early as March. “We want to create a nice, safe environment at an affordable price,” says Richard Egen, one of the six co-developers.
Already there are enquiries from families who are keeping urns with the ashes of passed-on relatives at home because they do not know what to do with them. There would be the option of an urn space and plaque in the planned memorial wall, developers say.
For burials there is a special introductory offer of R6 000 for each of the 5 000 double graves with black granite headstones, available in the first development phase. Ten per cent of the fee is paid into a trust for Memory Lane’s upkeep.
But there is a serious motivation: the Cape Peninsula’s burial grounds are almost full. Of the 38 council-run cemeteries, five are chock-a-block and the others at least 80% full. And each year about 35 000 people die in the Western Cape.
“We are running out of burial space. In the Cape we have a high water table, which limits space,” says one council official. “Crematoriums are not that popular.”
Burials do not come cheap and the council has recently raised its fees. In the Guguletu cemetery sandy and littered with plastic bags a site costs between R250 and R500, up from R125. The more upmarket burial grounds charge R1 500 for a grave. Then there is a R700 headstone permit fee even before a tombstone starting from R3 500 for a little marble memorial can be erected.
No extra forms are needed for burial at Memory Lane. As elsewhere, undertakers make all arrangements.
And the cemetery is open to all faiths: “We all die and we all need a place to rest our bones,” says co-developer George Findlay. There is one condition each grave has the same black granite headstone set in the lawn without the usual grave borders. But bereaved families can compose their own inscriptions and epitaphs.
With a lake, a small forest at one end and a stream, the cemetery aims to capture the rustic atmosphere of the surrounding agricultural area. This is a far cry from the littered local cemetery where bergies have taken refuge.