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I work in the biotech sector and am generally supportive of efforts to promote life science research and development in Montgomery County.

However, I am dubious about the Hopkins/Leggett "build it and they will come" approach to developing the Belward campus.

The major centers of life science innovation in the U.S. were not created by government fiat, but rather emerged over time from partnerships between entrepreneurs and leading research universities. The example of Singapore's "Biopolis," which Hopkins/ Leggett often cite as a model, is hardly inspiring given that country's autocratic government and command-style economy.

Furthermore, as a resident of the Washingtonian Woods community, which borders Belward, I am concerned about the scope of the proposed development and the traffic congestion, loss of green space and decline in quality of life that inevitably will result.

The county executive's glib maximalist approach to Belward, which effectively ignores community concerns about the scale of the development and instead defers to a decades old blueprint drafted long before the majority of us took up residence here, does little to instill confidence in the county's decision-making process. The accelerated schedule of public hearings likewise gave residents little time to offer their input. The plan that was recently released by county planning staff differs little from the one developed by Hopkins' consultants.

Most baffling of all, however, is Hopkins' inability or unwillingness to articulate a clear vision for how they plan to use Belward.

They toss out statements about the importance of interdisciplinary research, but have never indicated what disciplines will be represented at Belward and what projects will be pursued.

I assume they are not going to transplant their world-class medical faculty from Baltimore to Gaithersburg. We are left with David McDonough's statement, quoted in the Feb. 18 Gazette, that "[i]f we're collaborating on a cure for cancer, how important is that … that's the scope of the projects we're talking about."

If Hopkins could offer some more particulars, besides the lofty but scientifically and commercially impractical goal of "curing cancer," perhaps we could have a productive dialog. Yet they are apparently not required to do so until the county plan has been approved.

It is difficult to understand why our county government has adopted such an imprudent approach to a development project of this magnitude.

Gary Robinson, Gaithersburg