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Andrea Polanco found out more:…

The Eternal Garden Memorial is the City's new burial site located at mile thirteen on the Western Highway. This 20.7 acres plot of land is said to be 19 to 24 feet above sea level and can accommodate an estimated fifty thousand graves spaces.

Zenaida Moya-Flowers: Mayor- Belize City
"This is a beautiful piece of land, its suitable enough for a home and as with all beautiful sculptures it will take some time to develop and uncover the beauty that lies beneath as our design, our plans and our vision for Eternal Garden Memorial come to past."

This new burial ground will offer city residents the comfort of proper drainage, demarcation and additional equipment to help to bury their loved ones, something that was missing from the Lord's Ridge Cemetery:

Wayne Usher: Councilor
"I am very pleased to tell you all today that when the first hole was dug here, the trial hole - we dug one trial hole not a big one but just enough to go down. We were down to 6 feet right Mr. Bedran 6 feet and no water ladies and gentlemen, no water at 6 feet. We can now go back to the laws that says you should be buried 6 feet under, we can now do that. In Belize City I think we had to stop at 4 feet. Now we have a generator, we even have tripod lights spotting on the bodies and everything else happening. We have a tent so the guys can come in rain or shine. We are equipped, our people at the cemetery will be in uniform so you won't have to guess who is attending to you."

"If you look at the map behind me there will be certain areas demarcated for example you won't have ground graves mixed up with tombs, it will be separate. ground graves will be ground graves even papal burial will be done in a certain area so it give aesthetic and order to what is here."

But to bury their loved ones here, it sounds like residents will have to incur a hike in the prices, for instance an open grave like this one costs two hundred and fifty dollars, and today Councilor Wayne Usher gave us the full rundown of proposed prices:

Wayne Usher: Councilor
"For tombs it's a thousand dollars and for vaults its twelve hundred dollars. For the re-opening of graves - the price of that have yet to be determine. For children its one hundred dollars. "

Andrea Polanco
"So councilor tell me, when it will be finalize?"

Wayne Usher: Councilor
"That needs to go through due process. It has to go through the solicitor's office for that to be legally drafted. There has to be consultation through the cabinet level, then it goes to the House of Representatives for passage into law and all of that has processes. I do not know the intricacies of those processes but I do know that it has to go through all those stages before that could be pass."

Landscaping and beautification projects have already started on the site. It is still a work in progress and in the years ahead residents of the city can expect new services:

Zenaida Moya-Flowers: Mayor- Belize City
"At first glance this may appear you know....it something that is in the making and you are right because it is something that is in progress, what you see here and what we are sitting around here took some time but it's a process whereby there has to have been a lot of vision."

Wayne Usher: Councilor
"We will have the authority to bury people above ground. We will have the authority to build vaults above ground for burials as in Yabra vaults. We will have the authority to do mass so lenience, which is like a little hut with several bodies buried inside the hut above ground. We will have columbarium where when you cremate your body you can push the urn within those little cavities. I want us to also move into the area of cremation of bodies - do it properly this time. What that will also do - the statutory instrument if we have let's say 40,000 people buried at Lord Ridge, the statutory instrument will then allow us to bury 40,000 more people at Lord Ridge above ground of their love ones. So you see we will have a lot of burial space coming on stream and different types of burials will be allowed and authorize."

And while the city council has plans - the folks 6 miles down the road at Homeland Memorial plan on capitalizing on the upgrade in services and prices, and on the popular dissent over the new cemetery.

Israel Marin, Owner - Homeland Memorial
"This is 55 acres but in doing the landscaping and the road structure and leaving the trees and stuff I don't think we will have full use of the 55 acres but we have targeted 45,000 spaces which is good for 125 years. Our thing is one use; we are going permitting reuse of the graves presently because we have enough space for 125 years so there is no need for that. The perception that people had out there was that Homeland was for rich people which is completely false. We have plots here for $1500.00 which includes not only the plot but actually with the services. The other plots are for $3800.00 and $2800.00 but its inclusive of all service which includes the tents, the chairs, the internment, building of the crepe and stuff so that notion that Homeland is expensive I think is just a perception because they were comparing prices that were paid previously at Lord's Ridge. We also have a program that we work with Social security so instead of getting your money from Social Security for funeral benefit there is a voucher that you can get from them and we would provide you the complete service with that voucher, maybe it was not known to many people because the Lord's Ridge cemetery was there but now that that is not available and most people are thinking that they have to move to 13 miles, we just want to make sure that the public is aware that homeland is an alternative and it's a good alternative."

So whether you choose homeland or the new city cemetery - burying your dead will cost more than ever - but, there's a tradeoff, it will also look better.

The Lord Ridge Cemetery - which is a comparably sized area - served from 1886 up to the present.