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Representatives of the university have indicated they see little reason at this time to pursue moving the site out of county jurisdiction.

The first official letter of inquiry from the city is being sent this week, said Assistant City Manager Fred Felton. Hopkins would have to request annexation for the Belward property, former farmland situated along Muddy Branch and Darnestown roads at the city’s southern tip.

In the city’s view, annexation makes sense because much of the project’s impacts will be felt on Gaithersburg roads.

‘‘If it’s going to be on our borders, we would rather control it and make sure it’s a top-quality project,” Felton said.

The anticipated future of Belward is as a premiere research facility to compete on the international stage.

‘‘It would not only do wonders for our image and notoriety but for our tax base, as well,” said Greg Ossont, Gaithersburg’s planning director.

He pointed to the city’s ‘‘proven track record” with annexations, as demonstrated in 2006 with the 180-acre Crown Farm property. That annexation was completed in 18 months, largely because the city’s planning process is more accommodating, he said.

‘‘We’re very much complimented by their interest in working with us,” said David McDonough, Hopkins’s senior director of development oversight in its real estate division. ‘‘But at this point, we have been working with the county ... over the last several months and that’s been a very productive and healthy and positive relationship, and we haven’t found a reason to move from that path.”

A premiere vision

Belward is the centerpiece to what Hopkins calls ‘‘Vision 2030” — a comprehensive plan to keep biotech in Montgomery at the international forefront.

Hopkins bought the Belward property in 1989 for $5 million from Elizabeth Banks, a former schoolteacher who had turned down much higher offers from commercial developers. As part of the deal, she stipulated in her will that the land be used only for research, educational and agricultural purposes.

Banks lived on the property until she died in January 2005, when Hopkins began planning in earnest.

The university has spent the better part of a year collaborating with county and state officials and leaders in the biotech community ‘‘to create what we hope will be the pre-eminent research facility in North America,” McDonough said.

Once planning began in earnest, it was quickly realized that Belward property’s size and deed restrictions are limiting.

‘‘As we looked at Asia and Western Europe, what we saw are campuses that are much larger, much more collaborative and having a much broader range of uses,” McDonough said.

Eyeing prime land

Hopkins wants a balance of 80 percent research and 20 percent housing, retail and cultural uses, but Bank’s restrictions preclude much of that. Thus, Hopkins’ is looking at the neighboring Shady Grove Life Sciences Center to provide many of the additional uses.

Hopkins is also eyeing the land adjacent to the future campus that is currently home to the county’s Public Safety Training Academy as a prime spot to build out much of the ‘‘ancillary uses,” McDonough said.

County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) unveiled a plan in December to split and relocate the PSTA to a 90-acre property in Gaithersburg a few miles away and a 300-acre parcel in Poolesville.

Doing so would make that prime land available for the housing and retail Hopkins wants to enhance the Belward campus.

County Councilman Philip M. Andrews, chairman of the council’s Public Safety Committee, opposes the PSTA relocation, even if it does allow for a better Belward, saying it could hurt volunteerism.

‘‘I would put the PSTA ahead of any use in that location,” said Andrews (D-Dist. 3) of Gaithersburg.

Fixing the snags

To limit traffic and promote Smart Growth principles, Hopkins wants to shift the alignment of the proposed Corridor Cities Transitway, a light-rail or bus line that would connect the Shady Grove Metro station with Clarksburg, to add a stop at Belward, and is working with state and county officials on that plan.

And to help advance the Belward project, county planners and officials are working to address other snags in the process.

Before anything can be built at Belward, the 1985 Gaithersburg Vicinity Master Plan, which covers areas on both the east and west sides of Interstate 270, has to be updated to allow for increased density and the mixed-use vision. But before that master plan could be updated, issues with the long-debated extension of Midcounty Highway from Montgomery Village to Germantown, known as M-83, needed to be addressed.

Not wanting to hold up progress on Belward because of M-83, planners — with the quiet go-ahead from the County Council — have broken the vicinity master plan into two pieces: East and West.

The idea for the spilt first surfaced publicly in 2006. County planners last March moved forward with the split, but were met with outcry from Montgomery Village leaders who said the move would isolate residents there and strip them of a say on issues on the west side. The County Council in October called for more information on the merits of the split.

After meeting privately with individual council members since then, the split has been effectively finalized, Planning Board spokeswoman Valerie Berton said on Monday.

‘‘We fleshed out what was in there and made the case for why to do East and West in a two-phase plan,” she said. ‘‘They said ‘Go for it.’”

The Planning Board will look at the West plan, now called the Gaithersburg⁄Shady Grove Life Sciences Center Sector Plan, as early as this summer before sending it to the County Council for approval as early as September, Berton said.

The timing of the split has added significance because county planners are also looking at the master plans for Twinbrook, White Flint and Germantown, which connect communities along the Interstate 270 corridor, and those should be looked at together, said Council President Michael J. Knapp (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown.

He said the split was needed given the urgency in advancing the county approval of Hopkins’s vision for Belward and the Life Sciences Center as quickly as possible.

‘‘The density there could be increased dramatically,” Knapp said. ‘‘If we’re serious about really moving into world-leading life sciences activity, there’s a lot of room within the current Life Sciences Center. ... This is a long-term vision that makes this make a lot of sense.”

Workshops

Johns Hopkins University is hosting a series of community workshops to elicit feedback on development plans for the Belward Research Campus. The sessions span three days, from Feb. 7 to Feb. 9 at Johns Hopkins University’s campus in Rockville at 9605 Medical Center Dr., Building 3, Room 121.

To register, contact Robin Ferrier at rferrier@jhu.edu or call 301-315-2896.

To learn more about the Belward project, visit www.mcc.jhu.edu⁄vision2030.html