Home-ready lots listed for sale on former Surrey pet cemetery site

Another chapter has been added to the story of an abandoned pet cemetery in Surrey. Nearly 700 animals are buried at the site on the southwest corner of 78 Avenue and 147A Street, once a rare B.C. cemetery for dogs, cats, birds and other pets. The long-forested land was cleared last spring. Three serviced, home-ready lots on the former cemetery site in Newton are now listed for sale.

Two lots are listed on realtor.ca for $1,214,000 each, and the corner lot for $1,269,000. The listing describes a “quiet established pristine neighborhood one block behind the Guildford Golf & Country Club,” but does not mention the property’s history as a pet cemetery.

Steve Gardner’s family had three pets buried there many years ago. He was among those who pushed to preserve the old cemetery land as a park and return grave markers to the pets’ families. When the site was bulldozed in March, Gardner said: “It’s pretty disgusting and sickening. My grandfather’s got two dogs there and also our family pet, Sherry, is buried in there. There are a lot of souls there, a lot of memories.” Pet grave markers were still visible in the dirt and debris as crews worked.

Gardner also said at the time: “I’ve got a funny feeling those guys working there don’t even know what they’re standing on, what they’re walking on, or what they’re digging in. I wouldn’t want to live there, and I’m pretty sure a lot of people wouldn’t if they knew what was on the site all these years.”

A sign on the property two years ago showed H.Y. Engineering’s application to the City of Surrey to subdivide the land into three RF lots for single-family homes. Now surrounded by houses, the 25,468-square-foot property was rural land in 1952, when Burnaby residents Daniel and Nellie (Mary) Blair sought a place to bury their beloved pets and established B.C. Pet Cemetery.

Later renamed Surrey Pet Cemetery, the property was sold in 1995. The cemetery stopped accepting remains, and the land sat relatively untouched for decades. Turnberry Developments was identified as the property owner in 2021.

In 2024, a dispute over the site’s future reached the B.C. Supreme Court. Lynn Weir, with Turnberry Developments, filed a notice of civil claim against Kristin Adele Schumacher, alleging “a campaign of defamation and harassment targeted at Ms. Weir.” A key part of Weir’s claim was an online fundraising campaign Schumacher launched to “stop developers from digging up BC Pet Cemetery.”