Working with the University of Maryland, Gilbane Development plans to cut down around 1,000 trees on the 15-acre property known as Guilford Woods to build townhomes and graduate housing.

The property, where hikers often spot deer and other wildlife, is located around College Heights Estates between University Park and Guilford Drive in College Park, with a trail that starts on Calverton Drive and the Mormon student center at 7601 Mowatt Ln.

Neighbors, environmentalists and students and faculty have protested, saying the wooded area protects water quality in a nearby stream and makes up more than a fourth of the remaining forest on the college campus.

They note that only two acres of the project would go toward student housing, while Gilbane would develop the rest into townhomes, roads and surface parking.

The group Save Guilford Woods has organized opposition to the plan. The Maryland Sierra Club, the Anacostia Watershed Society, state Senator Paul Pinsky and Delegate Mary Lehman have also come out against it.

The group Students for Guilford Woods held a rally at McKeldin Mall on campus Friday and presented university President Darryll Pines’ office with a petition asking him to consider an alternative site.

“There are numerous alternative sites for this development that would not require the destruction of a local ecosystem and the elimination of such a scarce and precious natural resource, but these alternatives have not been fully explored by the University,” the group noted.

About 2,300 people have signed the petition already, while University of Maryland professors have launched their own petition.

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