Feeling like I Have No Control with My Housing Situation. (LONG)

I need to complain, vent, and get this out of my system. I feel so trapped in my housing situation.

We moved here almost a year ago. We are renting a nice home, in an area we want to stay. We will be able to buy a house at the end of the year/beg. of of next year. We have to at least wait until Nov. -- not sooner. Our lease would have been up at the end of July. Our town is a college town and EVERYONE rents their houses in August and adverstise (and encourage tenants) VERY early in the year to re-sign. We were "encouraged" to re-sign our lease 3 months after we moved in (Nov.) for this Aug. We chose not to re-sign so early....it felt really rushed and we wanted to explore our options of buying before re-signing another rental agreement. So, our landlady (who owns the house, but also runs a management company for SEVERAL rentals) advertised the house, and showed it to 3 different prospective groups of people in April. We realized that we wouldn't qualify for the amount we would need for a decent home in the area until Nov., and couldn't find ANY acceptable rentals in Aug. We also couldn't find an apartment complex (there are only 3 in the area) that were not gross and/or would sign a 6 month lease. Our daughter was approved for early K this fall with the elemetary school, and moving out of the school district is not an option. The entire thing was completely stressing us out, so we signed the lease for another year. We were thinking we would look for a house in the winter, use a couple of months to fix it up if necessary, and then move into it in the spring, hoping to break our lease then (easier to find tenants ---and we would pay the extra if we had to).

So the problem? The HOA of our rental house is building a gravel road through our backyard to get to some cemetary behind a house 4 doors down. They claim the property is "common area" and/or "right of way" to the retention pond. We've had people in our backyard off and on for the past few months, and when I've asked what is going on, I've been told different things by different people. I've emailed my landlady (calling is fuitile), and haven't been told anything. The other neighbors are just as upset with what is going on, and have been told nothing (or basically - different things like I have). I emailed my landlady again when they cut a stump out of the yard with a picture. I got a reply from her secretary saying she didn't think the landlady knew, would send the email on, but she was on vacation for another week. Then yesterday there was a truck in the yard dumping stone in the creek. I hollered from my deck, "How wide is the path going to be?" He said, "Wide enough for a truck." I was pissed (was told wide enough for a lawn mower), and turned around and went back inside (didn't say another word to him). I emailed the landlady with new pictures, and got a response from the secretary. She said the HOA lady called HER and said that the property didn't belong to my landlady, and that I am not to "disturb" the contractors any more. Whatever. I asked one flippin question to men on our property from my deck. I honestly don't believe the property belongs to the HOA. I've seen the tax records online (we were thinking of buying this house if the price was right).
So, we now have a 4 foot, gravel road being built hrough our very private feeling property (the woods create a barier to the neighboring house/farm). I feel like the road is a BAD idea. The cemetary is ANCIENT (no one even knew it was there), and access to it is much easier from 5 houses down. I feel now, that we could potentially have people pulling in there, making our property less private (why we chose to live here), and unsafe for our 2 small children.
I just can't get over the fact that my landlady is letting this happen (or at least not putting up a fight about it). I also can't get over how a few members of an HOA can make these decisions without notifying the homeowners or showing the courtesy to at least knock on the door and say, "Hey, I'm from the HOA, and we are going to be doing X.Y,Z back here. You can expect A, B, C." None of the other home owners know what is going on. Everyone is being told something different. The guys in charge seem to be making things up as they go. Very unprofessional. Ugh.

Sooooo anyway, I'm not happy. I feel stuck. I feel that I can't use my backyard as we have (one of the biggest reasons we decided to stay here and not move to a cheaper condo while we wait to buy). I'd be happy for any advice you may have. I don't see many options. Thanks for reading this VERY long post.....if you made it to the end. :)