The developer is withdrawing from the purchase of land containing the former Montgomery Co.

A developer has given up on buying land believed to be in a former African-American cemetery in Montgomery County, Maryland.

The $ 51 million deal developer Charger Ventures had in the works with the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission was suspended in court after the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition (BACC) contested the sale.

The property is in the Westwood Tower Apartments, the parking lot of which was set up above part of the Moses Cemetery, where around 200 African Americans were buried.

The BACC wanted to stop the sale of the property on the grounds that doing so, without paying particular attention to potential burials under part of the property, was illegal.

“There is a law that was passed by the legislature that actually says that a landowner cannot sell land that contains a cemetery without working closely with the community,” said David Ward, spokesperson of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition. “No one has ever used this law before. I think we are the first such case.

In a ruling last month, Circuit Judge Karla Smith granted an injunction, staying the sale until a hearing.

However, with a developer moving away from buying, the future of the property is once again uncertain. But Ward said he hoped it was a sign of good things to come.

“It’s a win and it reflects that, I think, people are starting to understand as developers that they can’t have everything they want. This has been happening for a long time in Montgomery County, until the 1920s and 1930s, ”Ward said.

As the Housing Opportunities Commission tries to sell the land to create more housing in Montgomery County, the coalition wants to own the area, where the remains are, so they can make it a memorial for those buried in below.

“We think we’ll be successful in getting them to sit down with us as fellow citizens and figure out how to rededicate this cemetery that was so dear to so many,” Ward said.

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