Monday, June 22, 2009

Mount Auburn expansion effort: Taxes, etc.

The famous Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has an agreement to buy 2 acres for expansion. This story details efforts to gain tax revenue from the non-profit cemetery, which is exempt from paying real estate taxes. The cemetery wants to enter into a Payment-In-Lieu-Of-Taxes (PILOT) agreement. An earlier agreement that expired in 2006 called for Mount Auburn to pay $20,000 a year. Since then, under terms of that agreement, it's paid $1 a year.
Mount Auburn was the first cemetery in the Rural Cemetery Movement. I'm unfamiliar with the PILOT agreement for cemeteries; if it's the first to create such an agreement, it'd be interesting to see whether others follow suit. I'll be doing the research on this.

No comments: