So once again the neighborhood is on a mission to change governmental minds.

Those minds are at the N.C. Department of Transportation, which wants the Triangle Veterinary Emergency Clinic to add a turn lane and a sewer relocation to its renovation plans for a 13,000-squarefoot empty building shell at 608 Morreene Road - the former Mariner's Cove restaurant site.

"That's just crazy," said Morreene Road homeowner Cecilia Eichenberger.

DOT's minds aren't made up, said Durham Division engineer Tasha Johnson.

"We are in the process of reviewing," she said.

To Eichenberger and her neighbors, the warehouse has been a point of aggravation and an eyesore for more than two years. When the clinic proposed, last spring, to remodel and landscape the building for an expanding practice, the neighbors were almost ecstatic. But DOT's demands have put that plan in jeopardy.

"We are seriously committed to the project, financially and emotionally," said clinic manager Sharon Zeigler. "But if the money's not there, it's not there."

The clinic bought the building for $495,000 in December. Estimates for renovation and landscaping were about $1.9 million, Ziegler said. The turn lane and sewer moving will add about $325,000, and that's just too much.

DOT has been willing to talk, said Mike Grafinger, one of the clinic's owners.

"They heard all of our concerns," he said. "They were very nice and receptive."

Johnson said the road improvements may not be necessary after all.

Morreene Road is a state thoroughfare, and DOT policy is to require left-turn lanes when commercial development could create congestion on highly traveled roads.

In this case, adding the turn lane would put pavement on top of a city-owned, terra cotta sewer line and DOT fears that the weight of traffic could crack the line and require tearing up the brand-new pavement for repairs.

Triangle Veterinary, though, as an emergency and referral hospital, doesn't get a great deal of traffic, said Grafinger and Zeigler.

"On our busiest day," Grafinger said, "in a 24-hour period there were 25 clients." A typical day brings 10 to 15.

At that rate, said Johnson, a turn lane may not be necessary after all. And if no turn lane is needed, there is no need to move the sewer line.

But the decision remains unmade and the vets have enlisted allies.

Grafinger said he'd e-mailed state House Speaker Joe Hackney. City Manager Tom Bonfield and Deputy City Manager Keith Chadwell have taken up the cause, asking DOT to go easy on a business whose expansion could create as many as 70 new jobs.

"I have gotten involved and will remain involved trying to find a resolution," said City Councilman Mike Woodard.

"We will see what we can do," said Will Robinson, who owns two rental houses in the neighborhood.

Robinson, Eichenberger and other property owners near the Morreene Road-Linden Terrace intersection have shown themselves a "force to be reckoned with," Zeigler said. When they realized, in 2007, that an HVAC wholesaler was putting up a warehouse in their midst, the neighbors fought City Hall for months. As a result, the wholesaler went elsewhere in Durham, construction was halted and the builder put the warehouse up for sale in a collapsing real-estate market.

Now, it's back to the trenches. After a neighborhood meeting Wednesday night, they were making calls and sending e-mails to anyone who might be able to help the clinic come in.

"We want them for neighbors," Eichenberger said.

"There was a restaurant there for 25 years and we had no problems with traffic," said neighbor Betty Knecht. "And that was much more traffic than this would be."