More than 50 boosters and critics of the Gaithersburg West master plan laid out their best cases to the Planning Board for adding to or taming the scope of the county’s blueprint to transform more than 800 acres in Shady Grove into a live-work science and research hub.

For more than a year, the vision to turn the Shady Grove Life Sciences Center into a “Science City” of more than 20 million square feet of research, commercial and retail space, 60,000 jobs and 8,000 residences has spurred the backing of the business community and sparked dire premonitions of traffic and congestion from neighbors. Thursday night’s hearing will be the only hearing on Gaithersburg West until it goes to the County Council in the fall.

Leaders of the business and biotech community, university officials, students and some neighbors to the area lent their support for a Gaithersburg West that would maximize a vision driven largely by Johns Hopkins University, which owns more than 130 acres in the area. Speaking in a global context, they lamented that the Life Sciences Center — the nation’s third largest cluster of biotech — has not met its potential.

Read More | Source: Gazette.net