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Johns Hopkins Real Estate describes its proposed commercial development on Belward Farm in grandiose and eloquent terms. Science is good, no argument there, but how much is too much?

The Planning Board statistics indicate there will be 4.66 million square feet of floor space on the un-built portion of Belward at build-out, which would equate to at least 11,000 people on the 107-acre farm, with a job density of 108 jobs per acre. The current job density of Rosslyn, Va., is 92, according to a 2008 Arlington Economic Development report quoting the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. That would make the job density of Belward Farm higher than the current job density of Rosslyn. Yet David McDonough, of Johns Hopkins Real Estate, insists the development on Belward Farm will be one-tenth the density of Rosslyn. How is that possible?

Let's try another measure to help visualize the size of the proposed development on Belward. The big Human Genome Sciences buildings with the green reflective-glass on Shady Grove Road currently have 481,871 square feet of floor space. JHU could replicate those buildings nine and a half times on Belward Farm and still come in under the proposed 4.66 million square feet.

Incredibly, Johns Hopkins Real Estate has asked for 50 percent more building space and 143-foot buildings for Belward Farm, which would allow for 6.99 million square feet of commercial space accommodating approximately 17,000 people. If their request is granted, they could build the square footage equal to all the existing commercial development on the Shady Grove Life Sciences Center, including the hospital and the buildings on the west side of Shady Grove Road from the big brick building at the corner of Darnestown Road to Interstate 270, plus all the buildings on both sides of Key West Avenue from Shady Grove to Seneca Highway, plus the buildings south of the Life Sciences Center including Human Genome Sciences and the University of Maryland, plus the existing buildings on the Key West side of Belward. How can they jam all that into 107 acres? High rise buildings. Lots of them.

The total existing commercial development in the above mentioned areas, according to the Planning Board, is only 6.6 million square feet, so it would all fit into Johns Hopkins' plans. The job density of the expanded development would be 159 jobs per acre compared to the current job density of downtown Washington of 138, according to the above mentioned Arlington County document.

Grandiose, but at what cost to the neighborhoods around Belward Farm that would have to deal with the overwhelming amount of traffic generated by this level of development? At what cost to the taxpayers, who would foot the major portion of the bill to upgrade the infrastructure to handle the additional traffic? At what cost to the people of Potomac who have fought to protect their two-lane rural roads that would become congested cut-through routes?

The Corridor Cities Transit will almost surely be a bus and cannot possibly be used to justify this level of development. How could this enormous high-rise commercial development even be considered for the Belward Farm?

Donna H. Baron, North Potomac

The writer is with the Gaithersburg-North Potomac-Rockville Coalition, a coalition of 211 residents from 31 subdivisions.