Threatened Homes

According to the State Highway Administration (SHA) there would be 58 "residential displacements" (homes destroyed) resulting from construction of the Intercounty Connector route selected by Governor Ehrlich. Published here for the first time anywhere is a list of the addresses of houses that will be bulldozed if the ICC is built.

The list contains some properties that are vacant or already owned by Maryland, Montgomery County, or the Park and Planning department. This photo shows 17001 Redland Road, bulldozed on July 22, 2005. Is your home next?

Most of the properties are homes occupied by families. Of the 58 residences, 16 are vacant or government-owned already. Of the remaining 42, 17 are in the Cashell/Winters Run neighborhood. If the ICC were constructed 40% of all "displacements" of occupied homes would be in this one neighborhood!

The residents of this community wonder why their old, safe, quiet, park-like neighborhood is targeted for destruction. The effects of the ICC toll road would be negative for all county residents -- more congestion, more pollution and more traffic, and the destruction of homes and communities. And it would cost taxpayers over $3,000,000,000 (3 billion dollars)!

The overriding motivation for building the ICC is to promote vast additional real estate development, not to address transportation issues.

Background

The State Highway Administration released the ICC Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on November 22, 2004 (the Monday before Thanksgiving). It was 8,484 pages in length (including associated technical reports). Four public hearings were held in January, 2005. The public comment period closed on February 25, 2005.

Nowhere in the 8,484 pages of the DEIS was there a list of the addresses of homes to be destroyed. We (Eve & Roger) asked the SHA for the list. We were told that the information was sensitive and not available, so we filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get it. We were also told that affected residents had been notified back in September of 2004. Look at the letter and map that we received on September 30, 2004 to see what SHA regards as notification. We complained. As of August 21, 2005, this is still the only notification anyone threatened with "displacement" has received.

In January we wanted to tell people that their homes might be demolished, and encourage them to give public testimony in the small amount of time available. But the SHA stalled just long enough to prevent us from notifying them in time for the public hearings. We didn't get the list until after the window for public comment was closed.

We want everyone in Montgomery County and the State of Maryland to know that if the ICC were built, real people and places would be harmed. We've added links to property records and map locations to the list of homes to be destroyed. Our correspondence with the SHA is below if you're interested.

SHA Correspondence

The initial request for information seemed pretty clear -- we wanted a list of addresses of homes that would be destroyed by the various alternative routes under consideration.

After a full month we got a reply and two spreadsheets -- one for Montgomery County and one for Prince Georges County. It was a non-responsive response -- it was impossible to extract the information we requested from the data we were given.

We then sent a letter of complaint to the SHA and copied state and county politicians with an attached cover letter. This was during the last week of the comment period on the DEIS.

The following month, after consulting with friends and lawyers, we decided to file a new request. The SHA response came within a few days and provided the reqested information. But the comment period was closed.