Code change would allow pet crematorium in Lawton

A proposal to formally define a crematorium within city code will allow Jeremy Peterson and his wife to open a pet crematorium in Lawton.

Members of the City Planning Commission signed off on the first part of the process earlier this month, recommending that crematorium be defined as a place to incinerate human or animal corpses. Then, crematorium would be added as a permitted use in I-1 Restricted Manufacturing and Warehouse District (meaning it could be put in as long as the site was zoned I-1) and a Use Permitted on Review in C-5 General Commercial District (meaning, prior approval from the CPC and City Council would be needed before it could operate). I-1 is the most restrictive industrial zoning; C-5, the least restrictive commercial zoning.

The proposed ordinance and zoning changes now go to the City Council for approval. That approval means Peterson can take the next step in his plan for a new business: file a Use Permitted on Review application for a site at Southwest D Avenue and South 11th Street in downtown Lawton.

Planning Director Christine James said it was Peterson’s questions that first prompted planners to look at city code, as far as placement of crematoriums. She said that now, city code only addresses crematoriums as an accessory use to funeral homes, which is how one crematorium is allowed to operate in the downtown area.

“This is a stand-alone, whether human or pet,” James said of the code provision that would allow a crematorium to exist as only that business, as long at it was within I-4 or C-5 zoning districts.

Peterson said it was his questions about crematoriums — specifically, those for animals — that brought the issue forward. He said while pet owners in the Lawton area once had an option for cremating animals, “now we do not.” Peterson said an owner’s option is to have their pet sent to Oklahoma City.

Peterson approached the idea from a dual perspective, as both a pet owner and a businessman.

“There is a need. Let’s fill a void,” he said, adding that as he began to look at what was his only option for a business location — industrial zoning — there were few suitable buildings that would meet his needs.

He said he approached the city’s Planning Department about the problem, and planners, after analyzing the idea, said C-5 zoning made sense as a Use Permitted on Review.

Peterson said when his search expanded to C-5 tracts, he quickly found options and settled on the old DebbieDo Embroidery & Screen Printing building in the 1000 block of Southwest D Avenue. His purchase of that building is pending approval of the change in city ordinance that would allow him to set up shop in a C-5 zone.

Peterson said he has done his research and today’s cremation facilities are less intrusive than those of old, with internal filtration systems that prevent the billowing black smoke that used to mark crematoriums.

“It’s not a problem,” he said.