As envisioned by Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett, the police and fire rescue training academy that will in a few years be built at the Webb Tract near Montgomery Village would get the county's emergency personnel out of cramped, 36-year-old quarters and into digs that feature state-of-the-art equipment.

The layout of driving courses, classrooms and fire training facilities for the Public Safety Training Academy is not final. But in shifting through several iterations meant to appease thousands of nearby residents, Leggett (D) made a compromise: the PSTA at the Webb Tract would not have "flashover" training in which firefighters prepare for dangerous flare-ups under live-fire conditions that billow a column of black smoke.

Officials are looking to conduct flashover training elsewhere in the county, and are also negotiating with nearby jurisdictions to have firefighters prepare for flashovers there. They declined to say which jurisdictions and where in the county they are looking.

"We have committed that this is necessary training," Acting Fire Chief Richard Bowers said of flashovers. " … It's very essential. That's what kills and injures firefighters."

A critic of Leggett's plan, County Councilman Michael J. Knapp, said he sees the proposed elimination of flashover training at the Webb Tract as further proof that the PSTA should be renovated, not moved and rebuilt.

"One of the things that makes the PSTA so significant and high-quality, we're going to get rid of?" said Knapp (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown. "If we can't do those things, why move it?"

The Webb Tract is a central piece in Leggett's plan to relocate more than a dozen county operations while clearing the way for redevelopment plans in Shady Grove.

Emptying out the PSTA's 52-acre site at Great Seneca Highway and Route 28 would make way for more than 2,000 homes, a school and a mass transit stop that Leggett and many county leaders said are needed to support a 30-year plan to turn a 900-acre area in Shady Grove into a world-class life sciences hub.

Building the PSTA at the Webb Tract would cost $120 million, while selling the 52 acres would bring in $63.5 million, according to projections. The $25 million needed to renovate the PSTA at its current site is budgeted.

Council President Philip M. Andrews, who also is unconvinced that the PSTA needs to move, said he wants Leggett to provide more details on the Webb Tract proposal's cost-effectiveness and tradeoffs before deciding to fund it.

Simulated realism

Built in 1973, the PSTA has in many ways been a regional model in emergency training. But it also has barely changed since Capt. Christina Faass, director of the Montgomery County Police Training Academy, came through as a recruit in 1985.

The facility is most limited in classroom space, she said. A new PSTA would remedy that and bring much more: a bigger driving track on which officers would be able to reach more realistic top speeds; a building and kennel for the K-9 squad; an outdoor "cityscape" where officers could hone their tactics; and an auditorium, to be built in a later phase, for promotions, memorials and recruit graduations.

From the fire department's side, the current PSTA limits the ability to adapt to the county's increasingly urban environment, said Bowers. The proposal for the new PSTA is in the "infant stages" but the improvement will be seen "from the basement to the penthouse," he said, including "smart" classrooms outfitted with computerized audio-visual gear, EMT simulators, a command lab for senior staff with computer-generated tactical exercises, and special operations training that simulates building collapses and hazmat encounters.

‘A united front'

Officials have promised neighbors of the Webb Tract that no dangerous chemicals would be burned and that the "theatrical smoke" from the burn building would dissipate quickly and without polluting. Residents in East Village also have convinced Leggett to leave more than 300 feet of buffer between dozens of homes and the proposed driving track.

But Leggett's decision last month to add two major county operations — maintenance depots for the parks department and school system — to his plans for the Webb Tract set off a wave of resident unease. Community leaders from Montgomery Village, Hunters Woods and Flower Hill are trying to corral that emotion into a coalition to give residents a better position at the bargaining table.

"The county has been happy to keep us divided. Now we'll be able to stand up and bring a united front," said David Linck, president of the East Village Homes Corp. and a leader of the coalition. "… At this stage, we're better off opposing it until they can come up with a real plan. They have to do a lot more work than they've been doing. They've got to go do their homework and get their act together and really analyze what they're doing."