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The public hearing on the $48 million proposal to move the police and fire/rescue training academy from Shady Grove to Montgomery Village is set for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at the County Council building, 100 Maryland Ave., Rockville.

As part of his sweeping plan to relocate more than a dozen county operations, County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) wants to sell the 44 acres that hold the Public Safety Training Academy, on Darnestown Road and Great Seneca Highway, and build an academy at the Webb Tract near Montgomery Village and the Montgomery County Airpark.

To do so, Leggett is asking the council to add $48.3 million to the capital budget for fiscal 2009-2014 — $46.6 to buy the 130-acre Webb Tract and $1.7 for planning — paid for with short-term financing.

Six of nine council members must approve the appropriation. In recent subcommittee work sessions, some on the council have questioned whether the PSTA needs to be relocated, but the county's police and fire chiefs argued that the 30-year-old facility is run-down, does not allow room to grow and would be too expensive and inconvenient to renovate.

Clearing out the PSTA site also has far-reaching consequences for a multi-decade plan to turn a 900-acre area west of Interstate 270 into a live-work-play, biotech "Science City." Under the Gaithersburg West master plan — which the Planning Board readied for Leggett and the council last week — the land would hold 2,000 homes, a fire station, elementary school and a stop for the Corridor Cities Transitway.

Leggett is also eyeing the Webb Tract as site for the county schools food distribution warehouse and the maintenance depots for the school system and the county planning commission. That would help clear out the county's industrial park next to the Shady Grove Metro station.