Dread and Defiance in the Connector's Path
As Road Nears Approval, Those Who Would Make Way Have Many Questions
Thursday, January 26, 2006; Page T03
Christy and Ben Graybeal have reluctantly started scoping out nearby neighborhoods. Eve Burton said she won't leave her home without a fight. Floyd Ray Lashmit plans to hire a property appraiser, saying, "Anyone who wants to throw me out of my house, I don't trust."
As Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) recently renewed a promise to begin building an intercounty connector through central Montgomery County and western Prince George's County by year's end, people living in the highway's path have begun to contemplate when they might be forced to sell their homes, pack up and move.
  Floyd Ray Lashmit would have to find a new place for his tractor collection if he is forced to sell his 21/2 acres to the state. (By James M. Thresher -- The Washington Post) |
The Federal Highway Administration approved the state's final environmental impact study of the highway this month and is expected to sign off on the project in the spring after a public comment period. That would require property owners to begin reaching purchase agreements with the state, finding new places to live and vacating neighborhoods that many said they had planned never to leave.
"We're still hoping the public will realize that destroying our neighborhood isn't fair and isn't right, and maybe we can be saved," said Christy Graybeal, 29, who stands to lose the 60-year-old home that she and her husband have painstakingly refurbished over the past six years.
Monika Mahabarara's day-care center in the Longmead Crossing community is on the list of properties to be purchased if the intercounty connector is built along the state's preferred route. However, Mahabarara said, she's in limbo because she hasn't heard officially that her business would go.
"They haven't told me anything yet," Mahabarara, 34, said. "It's very frustrating. Every day and every night, I'm thinking, 'What's going to happen?' "
The state can't buy property in the intercounty connector's path until the Federal Highway Administration approves the six-lane toll road with a "record of decision." However, those who have watched the proposal's progress over the past couple of years say it seems a done deal, unless opponents delay or defeat it with a legal challenge. After decades of debate, federal and state highway officials have been working closely together to streamline the road's most recent environmental review.
To keep the highway plans moving while awaiting final federal approval, the state has begun appraising properties that would need to be bought. The Maryland State Highway Administration's chosen route would require buying almost 1,400 acres, including 52 homes and 11 businesses, from almost 500 property owners, state officials said. The number of people who would lose their properties is smaller than it would be in similar densely populated areas, they said. Because the preferred route lies mostly within both Montgomery's and Prince George's master plans, highway officials said, much of the area has not been developed.
Buying land along an 18-mile stretch between Interstate 270 in Gaithersburg and the Route 1 corridor in Laurel is a major part of the $2.4 billion project. An estimated $393 million would be spent on property along the route and land nearby that would be preserved to offset environmental damage caused by the highway.
Chris Larson, director of the state highway administration's Office of Real Estate, said the state will begin buying land as soon as federal approval is received. The highway's westernmost section, a seven-mile stretch between I-270 and Route 28, would be built first. Larson said construction would begin by year's end even if property purchases are pending.
"We'd have to work around them," he said.
A Creeping Realization
For many of those in the highway's path, the notion that they will soon part with their homes and neighbors is increasingly real -- and increasingly emotional.
