Relatives
fight cemetery's rezoning
Developer plans to build homes near site of unmarked graves
EARNEST WINSTON, The Charlotte Observer
Jackie Alexander Stanley has four generations of family buried in New Hope Presbyterian Church Cemetery. But she gets emotional at the thought that construction trucks could roll over some of their graves.
Stanley, her relatives and neighbors are fighting a plan by a developer to build up to 64 town homes off West Sugar Creek Road in north Charlotte. They fear the development would spill onto the unmarked graves they think fall outside the property lines of the abandoned African American cemetery that dates back to the 1860s.
"We are really hurt," said Stanley, 65, a retired hairdresser. "We have not forgotten our loved ones. Let them rest in peace."
Developer Vincent James said surveyors have found three possible graves that straddle the adjacent property he has an option to purchase. He said he would build a buffer between the gravesites and the houses. The homes would range between $97,000 and $125,000.
"We will not build on top of graves. That's a fact," said James, a former Charlotte-Mecklenburg planning commissioner.
City-county planners say the church site is not part of the 8 acres James is trying to get rezoned. But they say James has failed to submit site plans showing whether graves are on the site.
Developers can build on top of cemeteries in Charlotte, but only with City Council approval. And before construction begins, they must relocate the graves and notify the next of kin.
James says relatives and neighbors are looking for any reason to block his project. If the cemetery is so important, he asked, why did they allow it to fall into disarray?
On the protest petition filed with the Planning Commission's Zoning Committee, the opponents cite not only the cemetery but concerns about traffic, crime and overdevelopment as well. Foes of the proposed development hope to get the cemetery site designated as a local historic landmark.
Stanley said her deceased mother, Daisy, kept up the cemetery until her health began to fail in the late 1980s. Now relatives hope to refurbish the burial ground. For several weekends now, family members and other supporters have cleared away some of the thick brush.
The overgrown graveyard is barely visible from Northaven Road. A handful of headstones remain, including that of Willie Moore's. The World War I Army veteran was Stanley's uncle.
Relatives said the cemetery was vandalized during the 1960s, and many tombstones were stolen. Family members have since removed other markers, making it difficult to know the exact location of many of the graves.
The Rev. Sam Roberson, head of the Presbytery of Charlotte, said when New Hope Presbyterian merged with New Hampton Presbyterian, the job of managing the cemetery fell by the wayside. Now he said the presbytery's council is looking at what its role should be in the future of the cemetery.
Councilman Malcolm Graham said James has a high hurdle to clear to convince him that houses should rise on the land in question. He's said he's skeptical because James has failed to meet deadlines to submit site plans. The City Council has indefinitely deferred the rezoning.
Tawana Wilson-Allen said her great-grandmother, a great-aunt and a cousin are buried in the cemetery. She thinks other ancestors are buried there, too.
"I definitely think that the cemetery needs to be preserved," said Wilson-Allen, a former planning commissioner. "I'm all for progress, but there are certain things from our past that we just should not forget."
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