Belward Farm has quietly sat as developers gobbled up Montgomery County’s once-bucolic countryside, building lucrative townhouse communities, office parks and shopping centers.
Now the 108-acre farmstead’s days between the border of Rockville and Gaithersburg are limited as land owner Johns Hopkins University is moving forward with its plans to build a science and research campus on the property.
The family who donated the land has sued the university over those plans, although they and local residents have known for decades this day was coming.
Instead, the controversy over Belward is as much about trust as it is about business.
“This is a much more emotional master plan,” said Donna Baron, coordinator of a resident coalition fighting urban development in the suburbs.
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