CHIPPEWA TWP. — David Gabauer will finally have his crematorium.
The Chippewa Township Commissioners unanimously approved a plan for Gabauer to expand his Blackhawk Road funeral home to include a crematory at their April 11 meeting. A similar plan was struck down by Brighton Township in September.
Gabauer did not respond to a request for comment on the plan.
Township Manager Mark Taylor said the crematory is an approved use in the township's R-3 district. The township added crematories to the approved use in that zoning district in 2003, Taylor said.
Gabauer, who owns five funeral homes in Beaver County and serves as county coroner, does not have a crematorium at any of his other funeral homes, located in Beaver Falls, New Brighton, Koppel and Ambridge.
In September, he appealed to the Brighton Township zoning hearing board to build a funeral home and crematory at the intersection of Tuscarawas Road and Little Beaver Drive, across from the Tusca Plaza. That request was denied after six hours of testimony because it didn't meet two of the requirements set in the township's zoning code. A site plan was not submitted, and there were questions about how the crematorium would affect the "public health, safety or welfare" of the community.
During a hearing for the proposed Brighton Township crematory, Tom Krowl, vice president of marketing for Illinois-based Cremation Systems, said Gabauer-Lutton Funeral Home expects to cremate about 108 people in a calendar year. About 47 percent of the funeral home's clients request cremation, he said.
Minutes from the April 11 meeting in Chippewa indicate that the township's planning commission recommended the project for approval, and there was no discussion by the commissioners before the vote. According to the minutes, Taylor told the commissioners that pumping gas sends out twice the emissions that a single cremation emits.
"(Gabauer) told us that you would never know it was happening," Taylor said this week. "It's not going to be smoke rolling out of a stack, like you see in the movies."
Taylor said the crematory will be used only by Gabauer-Lutton Funeral Home, and its services won't be used by other funeral homes.
It will be the second crematorium in the county, joining Lacock Cremation Services in East Rochester.