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Supporters of Haw River State Park are challenging the Guilford Planning Board's recent vote that approved a golf course community next to the fledgling park.

Critics of the proposed Patriot's Landing will file paperwork and pay a required $200 fee this week, said Greensboro resident David Craft, a member of the park's local advisory panel.

The appeal of the planning board's Aug. 8 vote would be heard by the Guilford County Board of Commissioners at a date yet to be determined. The vote approved a zoning change authorizing Patriot's Landing.

"I think we can make a very good case to the commissioners that this decision should be overturned," Craft said of the 5-2 vote.

A Florida company, Bluegreen Corp., is planning the golf course community of up to 775 houses on roughly 690 acres in northern Guilford and southern Rockingham counties. Most homes would be in Guilford.

The project is on land that state officials hoped to buy for the new state park, but Bluegreen closed a deal with several land owners before the state could make an offer.

Project opponents will focus not only on the park, but also on environmental threats the project poses to the larger Haw River watershed, said project critic Lisa McHenry.

"I don't want to come off as a screaming environmentalist, but this is not responsible development," said McHenry, who worked until recently as an event scheduler at the park.

She said Bluegreen's plans are irresponsible because they would take large amounts of water from the relatively small Haw to irrigate the golf course during construction, put a sewage plant near the river and build homes near wetlands key to the Haw's health.

At the planning board meeting, representatives of Bluegreen said state rules would prevent them from taking too much water from the river and that the sewage plant would be a modern unit under close state scrutiny.

They said that in building and maintaining Patriot's Landing, Bluegreen would take care to contain fertilizers and other problem chemicals. But they acknowledged that once built, it would have less control over homeowners' actions.

Bluegreen attorney Henry Isaacson noted that his client's land is not the only game in town; there's plenty near the park that state officials could buy to expand it.

Park leaders have said the land Bluegreen wants to develop is special because of its natural beauty, location next to the park and such special features as a rare stand of mature hardwoods.

Bluegreen has offered to give the state park more than 100 acres of floodplain and other land it can't develop, plus a 50-foot-wide strip of "upland" acreage that could be used for housing.

The two sides are continuing to discuss an additional 50 acres the state might want to buy for the park.

Craft said those appealing the planning board vote will stress that Guilford County has an almost priceless opportunity to create something like the Triangle's William B. Umstead State Park, a substantial slice of nature amid what will become a heavily developed urban landscape.

"I think we're jeopardizing that opportunity if the planning board's decision is not overturned," he said.

Guilford planner Bill Bruce said that to be valid, the appeal must be filed within 15 days of the Planning Board's decision, or no later than Thursday.

Haw River State Park was one of the first new parks authorized by the General Assembly in 2003 under the state's New Parks for a New Century initiative.

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or twireback@news-record.com