A black church is fighting an effort to build a new mixed-use development in Bethesda.
The members of Macedonia Baptist Church, on River Road, claim the development will be placed on a site where local black residents were once buried.
Currently, a Citgo gas station sits on top of the property where church members believe those grave sites are located, just off Westbard Road.
Harvey Matthews lived in the area during the 1940's and 1950's. He told WUSA9 that he remembered playing hide and go seek in the area when he was younger.
"I cannot rest at night knowing this is about to go on again," Matthews said.
Macedonia Baptist Church has gone back and forth with Montgomery County's planning department about the issue over the last year.
The county has said it will work to get a "needed archeological investigation" of the site done before any construction takes place. However, Matthews fears whatever the county does, it will still not be enough to definitively determine whether the site was an African burial ground.
"If there's some grave shafts there that we can say that was a cemetery there, then there going to be some issues," Matthews said.
In two weeks, the county's planning board will hold a public hearing on the issue to go over sketch plans of the development's design.
The developer behind the project is Equity One. The company told WUSA9 it has no plans to build anything at the site until the county and church figure out a reasonable solution. It added it could not foresee construction on the site taking place for at least another year-and-a-half.
