Traffic congestion won?t get any better in a Westminster neighborhood, with 219 houses on the way and a vital path out on hold.
When Westminster annexed nearly 150 acres off Old Westminster Pike in 2005 to make way for a new neighborhood, nearby residents were up in arms, distressed over the cars that would back up through their tiny roads to get to Route 140.
“There was great concern about access, particularly the fear that people would cut through those residential neighborhoods,” said Thomas Beyard, Westminster?s planning and public works director.
To calm residents? fears, the county planned to build a road that would directly connect Old Westminster Pike to Route 140, Beyard said. The developer agreed to pay for the design and planning of the road, and the county has bought most of the needed properties ? spending about $575,000 ? but another resident?s parcel is holding up the plans.
Roger Mann inherited his mother?s 1.3-acre property on Old Baltimore Road when she died about a year ago. The road would cut through his backyard, but he?s not interested in selling unless the county significantly increases its offer.
“They?re going to intimidate me until they get what they want to get,” Mann said.
Allowing a road on the back of his property would lower his property value and keep anyone from buying the rest, he said.
“They?ve put me in limbo,” he said.
Mike Evans, the county?s public works director, said Mann?s property and another are needed to relieve current traffic congestion that would worsen with the new neighborhood. Construction is to begin next year on the new neighborhood, Beyard said.
Evans said negotiations with Mann were ongoing.
Construction on another neighborhood about a mile away on Old Westminster Pike is under way.It would pump even more traffic into the area.
The county designated $420,000 for the road in its proposed budget for next fiscal year, but it did not include previous costs for the other property purchases.
