Partial Takings for Road Widening – Howard County

Issue:

Jamie represented a number of Howard County, Maryland residential landowners, portions of whose properties were condemned by the State Highway Administration for a phased highway construction project.  This phase of the project was to improve and widen a 6.6 mile stretch of State Route-32 from two lanes to four between Linden Church Road and I-70, including installation of a new parallel access road.  This bucolic area of the county is relatively rural with a growing number of residential subdivisions with 3-acre minimum lots.  The State had determined that due to the low density of property owners along Route-32, a noise barrier would not be constructed along the widened highway.  The amount of property condemned in each case varied as did impacts from the project to each property remaining after the partial taking.  Generally speaking, existing mature screening trees along Route-32 were taken, and existing homes were left closer to the widened highway resulting in increased noise and an unscreened or lesser-screened view of traffic.