Vandals strike amid ongoing debate over controversial Haddonfield development

HADDONFIELD, N.J. (WPVI) -- The debate over proposed residential development in Haddonfield, New Jersey, took a dark turn over the weekend.

Police confirm they are investigating after receiving reports of yard signs being vandalized.

The signs, opposing some residential development at the former site of the old Bancroft School, were defaced with curse words and name-calling.

Chris Maynes is the founder of HERD, or Haddonfield Encouraging Responsible Development. His group is behind the signs.

He says right now about 275 are up in people's yards around town. In addition to vulgar language, vandals also lodged accusations of HERD and its supporters being anti-affordable housing.

"We're not opposing the affordable housing, that's a done deal and no one's opposing that. We're just opposing the 105 additional units on top of it, which is overdevelopment and unnecessary," Maynes said.

A current proposal calls for a handful of affordable housing units at the site and more than 100 expensive, luxury units as well. Instead of the dense, market-rate housing units, Maynes is advocating for green space, or just a different approach to the market-rate units only.

"We've been fighting for years to try to preserve this property for at least some park space, some open space for the town, and this plan effectively, that's on the table right now, takes all that off that table."

"Let's think about those market-rate units and how they would be built and who they would serve," added Maynes.

Right now, it's not known who is responsible for the vandalism but neighbors say the debate over the development has been contentious and drawn out.

The resident whose signs were defaced didn't want to be identified but issued a statement, saying, "I have lived here my entire life, in 50 plus years I've never seen an incident like this. I'm sickened by this whole escapade. It never should have gotten to this point."

"It was shocking that they would do this to just a random resident," Maynes said.

Maynes says the vandalism is believed to have occurred Saturday night. Police did not release any further details beyond their confirmation of an investigation.

Right now, it's unclear if any other similar acts of vandalism followed the initial report, and if so, how many.

Maynes says there are nearly 300 of the signs around town.