Still on the Wrong Side of the Fence

Several Lee Avenue residents turned out for Tuesday's commissioners meeting to continue a crusade against a new cemetery fence that they say has affected the quality of their lives.

A cadre of residents on the tiny street said the Methodist Cemetery fence, which runs for several hundred feet, is not flush with existing fences separating their properties. The gaps have led to pets wandering off and potentially being endangered by traffic on nearby Kings Highway.

"This thing had a stink on it from the beginning," said Mary Ann Campling, a Lee Avenue resident who had hired a lawyer to fight the fence, which the borough planning board approved over the objection of the Haddonfield Historic Preservation Commission. "I hope this doesn't happen to others."

The Rev. George Morris, senior pastor of the , said last month that his congregation wants to be good neighbors with Lee Avenue residents, but they also need a certain level of privacy in the cemetery.

"We were addressing an issue of privacy for people who come to visit the graves of their loved ones," Morris said. "Our feeling was the easiest way to address privacy and a better ascetic finish is to go with the fence that we put up."

A rusting, metal chain-linked fence previously marked the property line. The small lots that many of the twin homes on Lee Avenue are built on have tiny backyards, some less than 12 feet from the exterior of their homes. They had come to rely on a relatively unobstructed view from the rear of their yards.

Neighbors sought a compromise with the church to build a lower fence, or to erect a wrought-iron fence, with them chipping in for the additional cost. Commissioner Jeff Kasko had offered to be an intermediary with the church to seek a compromise after Campling and other Lee Avenue residents repeatedly showed up at commissioners meetings to complain.

Campling told commissioners Tuesday that a church lawyer told her and other residents that they couldn't even make their fences flush with the new 6-foot high board-on-board fence.

"He told us we'd be trespassing on their property if we extended our fences," she said.

No church representative was present at the meeting to dispute her claim. But Kasko still fumed from the dais.

"I'm really disturbed about the lack of cooperation and caring," he said.