Although officials at Healthy Start Academy said they need more space for their students to play, neighbors said that space doesn't have to be in their backyards.

The academy is planning to tear down two homes on Jackson Street in Durham to turn the land into a playground.

But that idea doesn’t sit well for Jeff Bergman and his wife Jessica Polard.

“It's the pattern of encroachment into the neighborhoods that we want to stop," Jeff Bergman, a neighborhood homeowner, said.

Bergman and Polard are part of task force to stop Healthy Start Academy from demolishing the homes. The couple said the playground won't be safe.

"[The playground] can possibly attract people all night long,” Polard said. “It’s not necessarily a secure situation for a neighborhood. We have families living here, we have children living here."

Neighbors oppose playground

Durham homeowners don't want to see two homes in their Jackson Street neighborhood torn down to make way for a new playground for Healthy Start Academy.

"Our older students don't get to go out for recess unless it's a special day and we feel they really need it,” Morey said. “We've been using the back parking lot for them to go out and play."

The task force hopes to keep the houses from being torn down and has asked the school to sell them.

If the houses are sold, Morey said the owner would need to move them somewhere else.

"If anyone wants the houses, feel free to contact the school and you can have them. But I need land, and selling the houses to someone else … I’m still not going to have land," Morey said.

But that's what bothers Bergman and Polard.

"The school can be here for 15 to 20 years. But these houses have been here for a hundred years, and if you take one away, or two away, it permanently leaves a scar on the neighborhood," Polard said.

School officials said they don't have any plans to move.

A hearing is scheduled on the matter for July 14 at 10 a.m. at Durham City Hall.