Media Release
April 9, 2009
Planning for Waikumete’s future
Waitakere City Council will look at ways it can extend the life of Waikumete Cemetery until 2055 as burial space becomes
a premium.
The council’s Infrastructure and Works Committee has given the green light to a programme that allows officers to start
looking at options to extend the life of one of Auckland’s most historically significant cemeteries.
Just 8.6 hectares of the 108ha Waikumete site is available for future internments and if nothing is done, the cemetery
would reach its capacity of new interments in about 2021. There currently are more than 80,000 gravesites at Waikumete.
Currently 56.8ha of land is taken up by existing graves and infrastructure (road, buildings etc) and a further 42.7ha is
protected under the district plan.
“The only other public cemetery in the city is at Swanson, which is considerably smaller than Waikumete, already in high
demand and nearing capacity with less than one hectare of available space left,” says Infrastructure and Works Committee
chairman Derek Battersby.
“There aren’t any other suitable sites within the existing Metropolitan Urban Limit for a new cemetery so seeing if we
can extend the life of Waikumete is necessary.”
One way to open up more land would be to follow Resource Management Act process to allow land with lower ecological
values to be developed.
The council will also look in to new burial technologies to make the best use of land available. These could include
above ground vaults and mausoleums for public burials.
Waikumete Cemetery manager Daniel Sales says new burial technologies are used extensively overseas to ensure most
efficient use of land.
Officers are expected to report back to the Infrastructure and Works and Planning and Regulatory committees in December
2009 following further studies into new burial technologies and preliminary consultation with the Waikumete Cemetery
advisory group and key stakeholders.
Public notification of proposed changes are expected to occur in February next year.
Editor’s note:
Waikumete Cemetery and Crematorium has served as the main cemetery for the Auckland Region since 1886. It is the largest
cemetery in New Zealand and one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.
Considered as being of considerable cultural heritage significance, Waikumete contains the graves of many people who
played a significant role, either locally or nationally. The surviving headstones, with their range of styles and
inscriptions, are an invaluable source of genealogical and social history.
It is one of only two cemeteries in the northern half of the North Island where space is currently allocated for Muslim
burials. It contains a significant number of mausoleums. In recognition of the need to provide for traditional Maori
burials, an Urupa was established in 1996.
Waikumete was administered by the Auckland City Council from 1886 until 1989 when control was passed to the Waitakere
City Council.
ENDS