What Brunswick County’s New Cemetery Protection Ordinance Actually Does

🪦 Brunswick County now has a cemetery protection ordinance — and it puts real teeth behind protecting burial grounds from development.

The commissioners adopted it unanimously Sept. 21 after residents raised concerns earlier this year about disturbed cemeteries. Here’s what it does:

• The county must keep an inventory of cemeteries and burial sites in its GIS system.
• Developers, surveyors, and property owners have to report any discovered or suspected cemetery within 10 business days.
• If human remains, grave markers, or funerary objects turn up during construction, work STOPS immediately — the county and the Sheriff’s Office get called, and nothing resumes until the burial area is identified and marked off.
• Destroying, removing, or vandalizing caskets, remains, tombstones, or grave markers can bring a $500 civil penalty, restoration or replacement of damaged markers, stop-work orders, and court enforcement.

Staff are also drafting a cemetery overlay district — a zoning buffer zone with rules like no heavy machinery within 50 feet of cemeteries, 20-foot access to cemeteries, and subdivisions showing cemetery boundaries.

Source: The Brunswick Beacon / StarNews.

Source: StarNews.