The Arlington City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to declare 1,158 plots in the Arlington Cemetery abandoned and available for sale.
Officials are aiming to open sales next month.
This comes as the city is preparing to return the cemetery to full operations. Earlier this month they contracted Wade Funeral Home to manage day-to-day operations.
Sarah Stubblefield, city’s strategic initiatives manager, said her team took several important measures leading up to the council’s vote, including re-platting the property to establish available sites.
Stubblefield's team also reached out to the community through historical organizations, assisted care facilities, a senior-focused publication called Seniorific and social media posts, among other means. Because of those efforts, she said her team received over 40 inquiries about the cemetery and abandoned plots.
But there’s still work left to do now that the council has voted.
“We will continue some of our administrative processes, set up things like websites, forms, all those good things to be able to actually open sales,” Stubblefield said.
There are plans in place in case someone discovers they have documentation that suggests ownership of a plot now considered abandoned.
“We want to make it clear to the public that if you later find some documentation about plots in the cemetery, the city is going to make every effort to try to find the same number of plots in a suitable location for those families as part of the good faith effort in opening this up as a public service," Stubblefield said.
More than 90 gravesites have been reserved through the city’s waitlist system, Stubblefield told the council.
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