A proposed crematory on Liberty Road in Randallstown has neighbors scrambling to make their voices heard before state regulators close the public comment period Tuesday. The facility, planned by Wylie Funeral Homes, would be capable of handling up to six cremations per day, according to public documents, and it would sit in a stretch of Liberty Road packed with shops, homes and schools.
The Maryland Department of the Environment has tentatively determined that it will issue a construction permit for the crematory, saying the proposal would comply with applicable federal and state requirements. As WMAR-2 News reports, the agency has made no final determination on the permit itself. The specifics of the project are laid out in Wylie's application to MDE's Air and Radiation Administration, filed under Docket #10-25, which seeks approval to construct a Matthews ES PPII Plus human crematory rated at 175 pounds per hour at 9200-9206 Liberty Road, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment.
Steve Smith, who has lived in Randallstown for 60 years, told WMAR-2 News the crematory would change air quality in the area. He said he did not think it would be appreciated in the middle of town, near an elementary school and a church. Fellow resident Cynthia Laney said the crematory should be placed somewhere safe and away from people, adding that the community does not want to live next to a crematory.
A Scramble Before the Comment Deadline
Smith and Laney both said that few neighbors knew about the proposal until recently, a complaint echoed by residents who gathered at the Baltimore County Public Library's Randallstown branch in mid-October to organize opposition. Those residents voiced frustration that they felt they never received direct notice as home and business owners near the site, according to Baltimore Brew. The outlet's reporting indicates the crematory would be built inside a 627-square-foot space within an existing 5,100-square-foot building that Wylie already owns on Liberty Road.
Neighbors have until Tuesday to submit comments to MDE, which will consider them before making a final decision, per a spokesperson for the agency. The department has said it has no particular timeframe for reaching that final call. Residents who want to weigh in can email [email protected] before the window closes.
The administrative path to Tuesday's deadline has been long. The same Baltimore Brew report outlines that MDE held a public community meeting on Wylie's application back in August before issuing its tentative determination, which opened the public comment period that now stands set to expire. Wylie Funeral Homes did not return a request for comment from WMAR-2 News on Monday.
Funeral Home Says It Already Tried to Address Concerns
This isn't the first time Wylie has fielded neighborhood pushback. Back in November 2024, the funeral home hosted its own community engagement meeting on Liberty Road to address questions about crematory noise, emissions and property values, and it committed at that time to adding perimeter lighting, fencing and landscaping trees, according to Wylie Funeral Homes.
CEO Brandon Wylie has said cremation is increasingly becoming an option for families, and that building an in-house crematory would let the funeral home handle cremations itself rather than outsourcing them to another facility. Wylie Funeral Homes, founded in 1993 in West Baltimore by Albert P. Wylie, now operates three locations across Baltimore City and Baltimore County, including the Randallstown site on Liberty Road and an East Baltimore location on The Alameda that opened in 2023, Baltimore Brew notes.
Why Crematories Are Multiplying — and Why Trust Is Thin
The push for more in-house cremation capacity tracks with a broader shift in how Americans handle death. The national cremation rate hit 61.8% in 2024, up from 43.2% in 2012, with the South Atlantic region seeing steady growth over the past decade, according to data from the Cremation Association of North America. Cost is part of the calculus: in the Baltimore area, a direct cremation typically runs between $995 and $1,395, compared with traditional burial costs that exceed $6,100 in Maryland, per US Funerals Online.
But recent history in Baltimore has made some residents wary of how closely emissions get monitored once a crematory is up and running. In August, MDE ordered mandatory stack emissions testing at Vaughn Greene Funeral Services in North Baltimore after residents reported black smoke releases during operations that July, Baltimore Brew reported. Building an internal crematory in Baltimore County requires funeral home operators to clear both local zoning variance approvals and state environmental air quality permits, a dual-review process that opponents argue has not given them enough opportunity to be heard before decisions get made.
