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In Md., a Neighborhood Vanishes
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People dig up flowers from yards. Small groups of young men, some carrying hammers and hacksaws, have been seen carting away gutters and pipes. A riding lawn mower was stolen recently from the front yard of a home that is still occupied.
Maryland highway officials say they sympathize with the more than 400 owners who will lose property to the highway, as well as those who will be left behind. They say sound walls and landscaping should help mitigate the sight and sounds of traffic.
"We understand when you have roads [built through neighborhoods], no one is ever going to be thrilled," said Joseph M. Miklochik, director of real estate for the Maryland State Highway Administration.
He said the state has asked Montgomery police to beef up patrols in Cashell Estates. Because vacant houses are ripe for vandals, he said, the state usually quickly demolishes those it condemns. However, he said, the state agreed to hold off this time until two federal lawsuits aimed at stopping the connector were resolved.
The state won the year-long court battle in November. Although an appeal is pending, he said, the state needed to proceed with construction to stay on schedule. The Cashell Estates houses will be razed in the next few weeks, he said. "Once the houses come down, it should help quite a bit" with the crime problem, Miklochik said.
But some property owners say losing those neighbors has only hurt them. After all but three other homes on Vechery's street are demolished and the connector rims his house on two sides, it will be isolated from all but four remaining neighbors. The closest will be at least 50 yards to the rear of his house.
Vechery, 42, said he has asked the state repeatedly to condemn and buy his colonial. Although state officials initially approached him about buying half his front yard, he said, they later told him they didn't need it.
Highway planners considered buying the house at an estimated value of $1.1 million but determined that they had already designed the project to avoid Vechery's property, according to e-mails between state highway officials that Vechery obtained via a public records request that took five months.
If the state bought the house simply because it is next to a planned highway, state officials noted, there would be "many examples" of homeowners along the connector route who could make the same financial claim. The project's $2.4 billion cost has long been a key criticism from some politicians and highway opponents.
Miklochik said state lawyers advised him not to discuss the case because Vechery has mentioned plans to file a lawsuit. However, Miklochik said, state policy permits buying a house outright only if it meets certain criteria -- if more than half its yard will be condemned or if the remaining property's value drops by at least 25 percent, for example.
Those criteria are designed to treat all property owners fairly, he said, but pertain only to those who will lose some land to a project. Those next to a highway who lose no land are not financially compensated, officials said.
"We have people living next to highways all over the state," said Valerie Burnette Edgar, a highway administration spokeswoman. "There has to be a reason to spend taxpayer dollars to buy a property."
