The Lynn Family Cemetery is more than 100 years old and located right in the Leesville Road Area, in the middle of a lot of hustle and bustle.
The popular, congested area is expanding to meet the growing demands, but Kay Buchanan is fearful of what will happen to her family's cemetery.
"Why mess a graveyard that's been here over 100 years? This is my family and I don't want it destroyed," Kay said.
The cemetery dates back to the late 1800's and through the years development has popped up all around. The graveyard sits along Leesville Road, which is currently a two-lane road. However, a new project will widen it to four lanes and add a bike lane and sidewalk in each direction. The widening project is set to take away some of the land on Kay's family cemetery.
The plan right now is for the city to put a retaining wall a few feet into the cemetery. Kay said if that happens, it will take away two potential graves.
Kay said the toughest part is having her family's final resting place disturbed.
"I want to be buried out here. This is my…I want to be where my mom and daddy chose at," Kay said.
Kay said if the city has to take some of the land, she wants land on the back end of the cemetery.
"If they'll give me the two in the back, then I can live with that, as long as they don't mess with the graves," Kay said.
When I reached out to the City of Raleigh's engineer on the project, he said the land is DOT land. He asked the DOT to investigate whether they can give Kay five feet of their land to make up for the land she will lose.
The project is not slated to start until early next summer, so there is still time.
The Leesville Road expansion is also taking away land from several homeowners along the road. Many of those homeowners aren't happy about losing their land because they think it takes away from their home values.
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