In Md., a Neighborhood Vanishes
Connector Route Claims Houses, Isolating Those That Remain

By Katherine Shaver
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 24, 2008

A few miles off Interstate 270, in the heart of bustling Montgomery County, a once-thriving neighborhood has taken on the feel of a ghost town.

Half the homes are vacant, their windows broken or boarded up. Driveways are strewed with debris. "No Trespassing" and "Beware of Dog" signs dot trees. Banging sounds come from empty houses where burglars pry copper pipes from the walls.

The culprit is not foreclosure but the imminent arrival of the six-lane intercounty connector that will slice through the Derwood neighborhood. This week, highway workers demolished a brick house and will soon raze five more on Garrett Road.

That will leave Mike Vechery's house alone at the end of the road. A short walk to the local park will become one mile after the state reroutes his residential street around the highway. His address will change. And his property value, predicted Vechery, who works in real estate, will drop by more than 35 percent.

"I've lost my road. I've lost my neighborhood," said Vechery, who lives in Bethesda but had considered moving one day to the five-bedroom home, which he rents out. "I'll have the ICC in my front yard and side yard, but they don't want to discuss anything. . . . It's going to change the whole way of life here. That's something they haven't really recognized."

Across the planned highway route, Kim Asbury and her parents are hoping to stay in their home of 44 years but will soon have six lanes of traffic and concrete sound walls cutting them off from all but two of their remaining neighbors.

"It's just devastating," said Asbury, 38, whose parents are fighting in court to save their house from demolition. "Before, you felt secure and knew your neighbors. Now, we don't know who's coming and going, or if someone is coming to break in. It's a very uncomfortable feeling."

This is life in Cashell Estates -- or what's left of it -- as work crews have begun building the intercounty connector. The highway's construction, scheduled to last five years, will be heard and felt by thousands of residents along an 18.8-mile swath of central Montgomery and northern Prince George's counties. But few communities have taken as direct a hit as Cashell Estates, a quiet, 60-year-old neighborhood of midsize houses, large lawns and towering oaks.

The toll highway between Gaithersburg and Laurel was long planned to run about a half-mile from Cashell Estates, which is off Redland Road about five miles northeast of downtown Rockville. But three years ago, residents learned that state highway officials had changed the route to cut through their neighborhood to reduce the environmental harm to nearby Rock Creek.

In the past two years, the state has condemned and bought nine of the 20 houses on Garrett and Overhill roads, requiring families to leave homes that some had lived in for 50 years.

Although those left behind kept their homes, they say they now fear a worse fate: being stuck in a decimated neighborhood that will soon be cut in two by a highway and concrete sound walls.

The vacant houses are now state property, and highway officials say those who tamper with them are trespassing and stealing. But neighbors say that hasn't stopped a steady stream of strangers from helping themselves.

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."