By Lindsay Whitehurst
The Cincinnati Enquirer

CHEVIOT - The building will continue to look like the other homes and businesses around it. A smoky haze over its brick-sheathed steel chimney will provide the only clue of what's inside.

The Rebold, Rosenacker and Sexton funeral home in Cheviot now has preliminary approval from the city's zoning committee to build a human crematory in a building across the street, at 3639 Glenmore Avenue.

The funeral home's owners said they need the facility to meet a growing demand for cremation and argue it will be practically invisible to nearby residents.

But some neighbors aren't happy about the planned addition. The building is set in a group of offices and homes and only a driveway width away from the nearest structures.

"If it was going behind my house, I would have the heebie-jeebies," said Cheviot safety service director Steve Neal.

Neal says he's worried about the value of the nearby homes.

"If I were trying to sell a house there and someone bid, say, 100,000 dollars and then (the buyer) found out that there was a crematory nearby ... yeah, I could lose money," Neal said.

Mike Sexton of the funeral home said the only outside evidence that a crematory exists will be a small heat wave near the top of the chimney, like "an asphalt street on a hot day."

The funeral home submitted a report stating that the emissions won't pose environmental problems.

The funeral home handles about 170 to 200 services each year, Sexton said. About 14 percent are cremations, up from about 3 percent 10 years ago.

"This a convenience for us and a convenience for the neighborhood," Sexton said. Now the nearest crematory is about five miles away. Before cremation, bodies must be transported to the facility and then back to the funeral home.

Building commissioner Charlie Meyer said the zoning committee decided that the crematory wouldn't have a detrimental effect on the neighborhood.

"This is one of our more prominent business people in the city. We had to consider whether this company would move," Meyer said.

Sexton said cremation is quicker and simpler than casket burial, and cremations can cost some $1,500 less than traditional burials.

For now, Sexton said, the funeral home is searching for an architect. It already owns the building, which has now stood empty for nearly a year.

Once plans are made for the crematory, the facility will likely be finished in about a year.

E-mail lwhitehurst@enquirer.com