[1]
Editor's Note: See also Ch. 43, Cemeteries.
[§ 4, L.L. No. 1-1981; L.L. No. 6-1987; § 1, L.L. No. 4-2006[1]; § 2, L.L. No. 3-2010[2]; § 3, L.L. No. 11-2011]
For the purpose of Part D of this article, the terms used herein are defined as follows:
CEMETERY
All lands now or hereafter within the limits of Mount Hope or Riverside Cemetery, respectively.
CEMETERY OFFICE
The personnel at the administrative offices located at Mount Hope and Riverside Cemeteries.
CEMETERY PROPERTY
Interment space intended for the final disposition of human remains, including, but not limited to, space in the ground, mausoleum or columbarium.
COMMISSIONER
The Commissioner of Environmental Services.
DEED
A document conveying a right of interment in specific cemetery property.
INTERMENT
The disposition of human remains by inurnment, entombment or burial.
OWNER
A person having ownership interest in cemetery property.
[1]
Editor's Note: This local law stated that it would take effect 7-1-2006.
[2]
Editor's Note: This local law stated that it would take effect 7-1-2010, It also provided that former Part B, Cemeteries, in Art. XIA be redesignated as Part D, Cemeteries, in Art. VII.
[§ 4, L.L. No. 3-2010[1]; § 3, L.L. No. 11-2011]
Unless otherwise prescribed by local law or ordinance, all other matters relating to the control, care, management and maintenance of the cemetery shall be determined by the Commissioner. Suitable maps shall be made of all grounds, roads, municipal structures, and interment space in the cemetery. The right to enlarge, reduce, replat, or change the boundaries or grading of the cemetery or of a section or sections, from time to time, including the right to modify or change the locations of or remove or regrade roads, drives or walks, or any part thereof, is hereby expressly reserved. The right to lay, maintain and operate or alter or change pipelines, ponds, or similar structures is also expressly reserved, as well as the right to use cemetery property, not sold to owners, for cemetery purposes, including the interment or preparation for interment of human remains, or for anything necessary, incidental or convenient thereto.
[1]
Editor's Note: This local law stated that it would take effect 7-1-2010.
[§ 3, L.L. No. 11-2011]
A. 
Title of all cemetery property shall remain in the City of Rochester. Purchasers of cemetery property or parts thereof shall acquire simply the right and privilege of interment of dead and erecting private mausoleums, columbaria, or monuments or markers, subject to the conditions, rules and regulations now in force, or which may hereafter from time to time be enacted.
B. 
Cemetery property shall be conveyed by deed from the City. Such deed or certificate of ownership does not confer a right to sell, transfer or assign the same or to sell, assign or transfer any portion of the cemetery property covered by said certificate or to sell, assign or transfer any rights that one might have in or to such property.
C. 
All cemetery property or parts thereof shall be indivisible except with the consent of the owner and the Commissioner.
D. 
A deceased person shall have the right of interment in any cemetery property of which he or she was the owner or co-owner at the time of his or her death. The remains of a spouse, parent, or child of a person who is an owner or co-owner of cemetery property may be interred therein without the consent of any person claiming any interest therein, subject, however, to the following rules and exceptions:
(1) 
The place of interment in such property shall be subject to the reasonable determination by a majority of the co-owners or, in the absence of such determination, by the cemetery.
(2) 
A parent or child owning cemetery property, in which the other would have no right of interment but for this section, at least 30 days before the death of the other, may file with the cemetery a written objection to the interment of the other, and thereupon there shall be no right of interment under this section. In such a case, if the parent or child so excluded from burial in such property dies without having any place of interment, then the person filing such objection shall at once provide for the other a suitable place of interment in the cemetery. The cost of such place of interment shall be chargeable to the decedent's estate, if any, or the person filing the objection.
(3) 
This subsection shall not permit the interment contrary to or in violation of any precept, rule, regulation or usage of any church or religious society, association or corporation restricting interment therein. This subsection shall not limit any existing right of interment under other provisions of law, nor shall it limit or curtail the right of alienation, as set forth in this Charter, by the owner of cemetery property before the death of the person for whose remains the right of interment is provided herein, and there shall be no right of interment in any property sold by its owner, before the death of the person for whose remains the right of interment is provided herein.
E. 
At any time all the owners of cemetery property and any surviving spouse having a right of interment therein pursuant to § 43-4 of the City Code, may execute, acknowledge and file with the cemetery an instrument, and the sole owner of cemetery property may, in a testamentary instrument admitted to probate, make a provision, which may designate the person or persons or class of persons who may thereafter be interred in said property and the places of their interment; direct that upon the interment of certain named persons the property shall be closed to further interments; or direct that the title of the property shall upon the death of any one or more of the owners descend in perpetuity to his, her or their distributes, unaffected by any devise. In any case in which an irrevocable designation of a person, persons or class of persons who may be interred in any property has been made pursuant to this subsection and in which the designated person or persons, or all of the known class of designated persons, have died and have not been buried in the places designated in said property or have by written instrument duly signed by the sole owner or all of the owners and acknowledged and filed with the cemetery renounced the right of interment pursuant to such designation, then, and in any such event, the owner or owners of the said property and any surviving spouse having the right of interment therein may designate another person, persons or class of persons who may thereafter be interred in said property, and the places of their interment, unless the original designation clearly indicated not only that it was irrevocable, but also that no further designations were to be made. Any designation provided for by this subsection, except a designation by a testamentary instrument, shall be deemed revocable unless such instrument provides otherwise.
F. 
Disposition of cemetery property.
(1) 
Cemetery property with an interment therein is inalienable and cannot be disposed of, except that unused portions of property may be conveyed to the City pursuant to state law for the purpose of resale.
(2) 
Unused cemetery property may be sold back to the City in a manner described in § 43-3 of the City Code. Cemetery property may not be sold by an owner to a third party.
(3) 
Intestate cessation. When the owner of cemetery property dies intestate, the possession, care and control of such property shall pass in manner described in § 43-4 of the City Code.
(4) 
Devise. Title to cemetery property shall pass by will, provided that the devise is specific and meets the requirements outlined in § 43-4 of the City Code.
[§ 1, L.L. No. 1-2006; § 3, L.L. No. 11-2011]
Any owner or owners of cemetery property may grant or devise the same in trust to the City, subject to its acceptance thereof, and the City shall thereafter own the same in trust to the extent and manner and for the purpose specified in and by the deed, will or other conveyance. The City must thereafter permit the interment of only such person or persons or class of persons in such cemetery property as may be designated in such deed, will or other conveyance or by the owner or owners thereof in his or her lifetime.
[§ 5, L.L. No. 6-1979; § 5, L.L. No. 1-1981; § 3, L.L. No. 11-2011]
The expenditure of perpetual care and cemetery enterprise funds for the Mount Hope and Riverside Cemeteries shall be determined by the Commissioner after appropriation in the operating budget or otherwise by Council.
[§ 4, L.L. No. 6-1979; § 3, L.L. No. 11-2011]
For all interment space sales, the City shall collect and deposit in the Cemetery Perpetual Care Fund a sum of money deemed sufficient for the purpose of the upkeep of the cemeteries. The principal and interest in such Fund may thereafter from time to time, as occasion may require, be expended by the City on the cemeteries for the purpose of keeping the same in repair. The City in no event is liable to repay the principal paid into the Cemetery Perpetual Care Fund.
[§ 3, L.L. No. 11-2011]
Special section funds established for the care of lots in designated sections or parts of the cemetery are hereby prohibited and void.
[§ 1, L.L. No. 1-2006; § 3, L.L. No. 11-2011]
A. 
Any perpetual care arrangement which requires the City to provide service to cemetery property, which exceeds the requirements established by the Commissioner for perpetual care, is hereby prohibited and void.
B. 
In instances where a property is covered by a special care arrangement, the Commissioner shall notify the depositor or heirs of record that the amount deposited for the special care arrangement will be refunded upon request. If no such depositor or heirs is found, the City shall have the right to transfer the amount deposited to a charitable institution who will oversee the special care.
[§ 1, L.L. No. 1-2006; § 3, L.L. No. 11-2011]
A. 
Notwithstanding the provisions of any other general, special or local law, the City of Rochester is hereby authorized and empowered to purchase the unused cemetery property from the owners of the property rights in such property for an amount not to exceed the price at which such property was acquired by said owners plus an amount equal to simple interest at 2% per year since the time such lots were acquired and paid for in full by such owners or their ancestors. If the owner or owners of the property rights in any cemetery property can be ascertained and located, then the City is hereby authorized to acquire such property from such owner or owners pursuant to purchase agreement. If such owners cannot be located after diligent search, the City of Rochester may acquire such property by condemnation, provided that such property has remained unused for cemetery purposes for a period of the most recent consecutive 50 years and no contact of record has been made with the cemetery during such most recent consecutive 50 years.
B. 
Notwithstanding the provisions of any general, special or local law, if one or more interment spaces remain unused in cemetery property, the City is hereby authorized and empowered to acquire such individual interment spaces from the owner or owners of the rights and property interests in such property for an amount not to exceed the sum for which such cemetery property was purchased by the original owners plus an amount equal to simple interest at 2% per year since the time such lots were acquired by such owners or their ancestors. If the owners of the rights in such individual interment spaces cannot be located after diligent search, the City of Rochester is hereby authorized to acquire such property rights by condemnation if such interment spaces have remained unused for cemetery purposes for a period of the most consecutive 50 years and no contact of record has been made with the cemetery during such most recent consecutive 50 years.
C. 
Cemetery property acquired pursuant to Subsections A and B may be resold by the City of Rochester at such prices as it may set from time to time.
D. 
Upon the repurchase of cemetery property by the City from a person or persons having title thereto, the liability of the City to any rightful owner or part owner of such property who has not joined in the conveyance to the City shall be limited to the payment of money damages and no equitable relief of any kind or nature shall be permitted. The amount recoverable by any rightful owner shall be limited to his or her proportionate share of the sum due all owners from the sale of the cemetery property as determined by the purchase price of the cemetery property conveyed plus an amount equal to simple interest at 2% since the time the cemetery property was acquired by such owner or his or her predecessors.
[§ 1, L.L. No. 3-1984; § 5, L.L. No. 3-2010; § 3, L.L. No. 2-2011]
Community mausoleums may be constructed in City cemeteries. The cost of constructing such buildings shall be financed through an advance sale of space in the mausoleums.