If someone takes the cargo shelf off of a $100,000 Mercedes, the luxury car will still be driveable but may look ugly and its value will probably plummet. The analogy is one Silver Spring resident Brook Kal-Ab uses to talk about the state’s plans to take a half-acre of his land to make way for the $3 billion InterCounty Connector.

He will continue to have a house on the property, yet he expects the property’s overall value to drop significantly. “I want to see if they can just take the whole piece of property and pay my mortgage,” he said Friday. “It’s too late to try to sell it. Everyone knows what the ICC is.”