North Potomac resident appointed to "Science City" Advisory Committee

North Potomac resident Donna Baron will be one of sixteen members of the Great Seneca Science Corridor Sector Plan Implementation Advisory Committee.

The committee is made up of residents, transportation management representatives, civic leaders, and executive branch staff.

Donna Baron is the head of the Gaithersburg-North Potomac-Rockville Coalition (GNPRC) and manages the Scale-It-Back website, which opposed the plan. She said she is pleased that she will be a part of the group now overseeing its implementation.

"I have spent the past two and a half years following every detail of the master plan and know it inside and out," Baron said in an email. "As a member of the Advisory Committee I will report back to the Coalition as well as the Westleigh Homeowners Association which represents over 300 homes directly across Darnestown Road from Belward Farm.  We still have many concerns about the effect of the massive amount of proposed commercial and residential space and will closely monitor all new development."

The final Great Seneca Science Corridor master plan was approved in May and allows for up to 17.5 million square feet of development, of which 40 percent must be related to research.

The Montgomery County Planning Board announced the members appointed to the committee on Thursday, Sept. 30.

The announcement on the Planning Board website states that the board will "review assumptions made regarding traffic, including transit use and parking; monitor plan recommendations; identify new projects for the amenity fund; monitor the county Capital Improvement Program and Growth Police; and recommend action by the Planning Board and County Council."

Also appointed to the advisory board was Tim Newell, nephew of Elizabeth Banks - the original owner of the 136-acre Belward Farm, which she sold to Johns Hopkins University.

Newell has stated that other developers offered Banks as much as $52 million for the property, but she chose instead to sell to Hopkins on the agreement that it would not be turned into commercial development.

The advisory board will hold regular public meetings and will make recommendations to the County Council and Planning board if development plans impact existing communities or public spaces, Nancy Sturgeon, the lead planner of the Great Seneca Science Corridor Master Plan, told Patch in a phone interview.

The members of the board are as follows:

Lynn Rose, Resident Representative -- Mission Hills Community

Dr. Stewart Edelstein, Exec. Director -- Universities at Shady Grove

Marilyn Balcombe, Pres./CEO -- Gaithersburg-Germantown Chamber of Commerce

Larry Diamond, VP Mid-Atlantic Region -- Alexandria Real Estate Equities

Morgan (Mick) Doolittle, III, Corporate Council -- Foulger-Pratt Companies

Lauren Pruss, Planning Director -- City of Gaithersburg

Dr. Jim Kramer, VP – U.S. Biologics Operations -- BioReliance Corp.

Tim Newell, Representative of Roland Banks, Beulah Banks Newell, former owners of Belward Farm --Newell & Associates

Brian Dembeck, Exec. Director -- Johns Hopkins Real Estate

Manisha Tewari/David Levy -- City of Rockville – Community Planning and Development Services

Donna Barron, Representative -- The Gaithersburg - North Potomac - Rockville Coalition and the Westleigh Homeowners Association

Larry E. Walker, President -- The Walker Group on behalf of Adventist HealthCare

Tina Benjamin -- Montgomery County Department of Economic Development

Bob Simpson -- Montgomery County Department of Transportation

Diane Schwartz-Jones -- Office of the County Executive

Phil Usatine -- Washingtonian Woods Homeowners Association