You're really on one about this for some reason, but the difference between you and a church or, say, JHU, is that a tax-exempt entity has every incentive to acquire adjacent property without a plan to use it, because there's no cost to carry it until a plan is developed.

And if those properties should fall into disrepair before there's a plan to use them, so much the better--I'm guessing JHU's going to hear a lot less opposition about whatever they decide to build at the corner of 29th & Maryland now that it's just a vacant lot than they would've while the houses were still habitable.