Cemetery Gets Approval to Build New Chapel
The operators of a cemetery can go forward with plans to build a chapel at the site of an abandoned supermarket now that the City Council has decided to allow the memorial park’s expansion, officials said.
The master plan for the expansion of Hillside Memorial Park & Mortuary calls for a chapel and mortuary to be built on a two-acre parcel at Green Valley Circle and Centinela Avenue, said Barry Berlin, the cemetery’s chief operating officer.
Although the plans were opposed by the city’s Planning Commission, and by some neighbors who wanted a new grocery store on the site, the City Council approved Hillside’s plans at its Jan. 26 meeting, city planner Carol DeLay said.
Berlin said no time frame has been set for construction, which will also include moving the cemetery’s main entrance eastward on Centinela Avenue.
The 44-acre Hillside Memorial Park, a Jewish cemetery in operation since 1941, is the burial place of Jack Benny, Dinah Shore and Al Jolson, among other celebrities.
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