PLCC featured in the Washington Post
The NCSG’s Purple Line Corridor Coalition was featured in a Washington Post story about rising rents and potential displacement along the train’s alignment. Read the story here. Gerrit Knaap and Sheila Somashekhar were quoted in the story.
Even as most construction on Maryland’s Purple Line stalled for the past 16 months, a group of academics, housing advocates, companies and nonprofits has continued to try to prevent the rail line from pricing out the residents and businesses it is intended to serve.
Leaders of the Purple Line Corridor Coalition, which operates out of the University of Maryland, say the lull in major construction since the project’s prime contractor quit in September 2020 has granted more time to try to ward off the fast-rising rents that typically follow new transit stations. The concern is particularly acute for areas along the rail alignment that have remained relatively affordable in eastern Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.
“You really need to start early if you want to get ahead of what we see happening in the D.C. region and beyond,” coalition director Sheila Somashekhar said. “Sometimes when you invest in communities, it doesn’t benefit the people who have been there a long time. … We’re already seeing rents rising along the [Purple Line] corridor in areas that, in some ways, are the last bastions of affordability in our region.”