A public notice of the proposed crematorium hangs on the fence at 116 Mountain Park Place NW. (Courtesy of Mary Duneman)
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A North Valley crematorium proposal has gone up in smoke.
The businessman behind the plan notified Bernalillo County June 1st that he is formally withdrawing his request for the necessary special-use permit.
Michael Monach’s vision for the .68-acre property near Second and Alameda NW – and next to a mobile home park – roiled some neighbors, who voiced fear about the impact crematory emissions would have on their community.
The Bernalillo County Planning Commission had approved Monach’s permit request in March, but neighbors subsequently appealed. The case was bound for the County Commission later this month.
Monach said Thursday he was confident he would have prevailed in the zoning battle but that the process thus far had been costly and he still had to get approval from the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board. After being told that could take another 12 months given community opposition, he said he could no longer justify the expenses associated with waiting, including ongoing lease payments for the property.
“I was not willing to wait another year minimum to go through that process,” he said in an interview. “I did not have a fear I would not be approved; it was more of the longevity to everything, and the numbers behind it.”
Neighbors had been fighting the proposal for months.
Allowing a crematory in close proximity to a mobile home park “gives the appearance that you and Planning Commission are callous, apathetic, and blatantly dismissive of those citizens which are of lower socio-economic status and/or may be people of color,” neighborhood association representatives Evelyn Harris and Pat Hauser wrote in their appeal to the County Commission.
In an interview Thursday, Hauser said he did not expect Monach to back out, but he believes it was the right outcome.
“We just think there are better (location) options when it comes to doing that type of a business venture,” he said.
Monach said his crematory plan is not totally dead, though he planned to pursue it somewhere else.
“Basically, I can go out to Sandoval County and have half the cost and no opposition,” he said.
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