Rural Life vs. the Road

In the view of many northeastern Montgomery residents, county plans are far more malleable than Gonzalez suggests. As evidence, they point to the "Golden Bear" area -- named for golfer Jack Nicklaus, who founded a company that bought and sold rights to develop part of the land -- which consists of 85 acres of single-family homes, a driving range and vacant lots near Georgia Avenue and Norbeck Road.

This year, while redoing Olney's master plan, the council agreed to allow denser development in Golden Bear, from one home per two acres to seven units per acre.

A new master plan, adopted by the council in March, redefined the southeast quadrant of Olney to separate Golden Bear from the rest of the semirural area. The fact that the connector would cut off Golden Bear from other parts of Olney made it sensible to treat the area differently, but it was the available land and easy access to bus service that led to the council's decision, said Khalid Afzal, a community planner for the county.

"The Planning Board and the council clearly wanted to make the distinction that they're not upzoning this area because of the ICC," Afzal said.

Much of the housing will be smaller and more moderately priced than other Montgomery homes. It will be built through the county's transferable development rights program, which lets farmers sell their rights to build in the agricultural reserve to buyers who agree to build outside the reserve.

"The upzoning is serving a lot of other county initiatives at the same time," Afzal said.

Nonetheless, the recent discovery of building violations in Clarksburg in northwestern Montgomery has shaken the confidence of some in even the best-laid plans.

"We keep hearing the commitment is solid and steadfast, but we also know there's been such a relaxation of regulations and of a careful, attentive approach to things in general that again, there's a lot of reservations about where the county is going, what the ICC portends," said Stuart Rochester, a Burtonsville resident and chairman of the Fairland Master Plan Citizens Advisory Committee.

"Master plans are written by humans, and as the population increases, master plans can and will be changed," said state Del. Karen S. Montgomery (D-Montgomery), who lives in Brookeville, a town of about 50 homes north of Olney. "I hate to sound pessimistic, but I think it's true."

In Brookeville, Georgia Avenue becomes High Street, a two-lane road. It hits a T at Andrea Barr's 1921 Sears cottage, with one end running through the rest of Brookeville and the other heading to the towns of Sunshine and Unity and on to Howard County.

Barr no longer sits on her patio. The noise and fumes generated by the cars and trucks from Howard, which turn onto High Street bound for the downcounty or the District, drove her indoors.

Each time a big truck passes, her windows shake.

She's afraid to cross High Street to visit her neighbors, some of whose historic houses are cracking from all the rattling. "It's become a truck stop," she said.

Del. Montgomery fears that Brookeville will become even more of a traffic magnet with the connector. For decades, residents have pushed for a bypass to divert traffic away from town.

"If we don't get a bypass built," Montgomery said, "this town will literally get shaken to death."