CARRBORO -- It doesn't look like Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton's going to get any help from Chapel Hill in trying to open the fence between two communities on Estes Drive Extension.

The fence -- three-tenths of a mile long, 8 feet high and topped with barbed wire -- went up this summer.

Management at Estes Park Apartments said the fence was intended to keep intruders out and keep children from playing near the railroad tracks that run between the complex and neighboring Village West condominiums in Chapel Hill.

The problem was the fence also blocked a path some people had used to walk or bike from the Village West area to downtown Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

"Many residents of both neighborhoods find this fence very inconvenient and aesthetically displeasing," Chilton wrote leaders in both towns last month. "Some residents walk by choice, others by necessity. Regardless, this new fence is a serious inconvenience."

Chilton did some research and thought he'd found a way to force the apartment complex to open the fence gate at least part of the day. His research showed the fence also closed off the driveway to the Leo Merritt property, a parcel owned by the Town of Chapel Hill.

The driveway extends from the Estes Park Apartments parking lot eastward over the tracks used to ship coal to UNC's power plant on Cameron Avenue. The driveway is also the most convenient place for Village West pedestrians to cross the tracks on their way downtown.

"The Merritt railroad crossing has been in that location for AT LEAST 70 years," Chilton wrote. "I do not believe that Estes Park Apartments has the legal right to close that connection."

But now Butch Kisiah, director of the Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation Department, said his office has done its own research and can't find any documentation proving the town's access across the driveway.

"At this time we cannot say that we have the legal right to access this property at this location from either the Estes Park Apartments property, or from the railroad," Kisiah wrote in an e-mail.

The town does have legal access to the property from Jay Street, Kisiah said.

Efforts to reach Shannon Brummett, the regional property manager for General Services Corp., which runs Estes Park Apartments, were unsuccessful.

Chilton hasn't heard any complaints about the fence lately and said he's probably finished working on the issue.

"The ball's in Chapel Hill's court as to whether they want to protect the right of access at that point," he said. "There's not much more I can do about it."