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GREENSBORO — Guilford County is part of a growing statewide movement to preserve dwindling open space, but the local effort remains fairly modest compared with those of more aggressive urban counties.

Guilford’s $10 million program pales next to the

$138 million that Mecklen-burg County has set aside for such land purchases and the $91 million approved for open space by voters in Raleigh.

But leaders of the local initiative say they’re making steady progress saving important property from development. And they hope to build the program into something with a bigger bottom line.

“We understand these are difficult economic times,” said John D. Young, chairman of the Guilford Open Space Committee that advises county officials on what land to buy with bonds local voters approved five years ago. “We’re hoping that later, when the time is right, it will work out for Guilford County to do another bond.”

That’s one of the messages the volunteer committee will take to the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday, when the two groups meet to discuss the program’s status and future.

Another message will be that $6.2 million of the original

$10 million in bonds remains unspent and that this is a good time to buy land. In today’s slow market, bargains abound that might not be there in a better economy.

“It’s definitely a buyer’s market,” Young said.

Open space is land set aside with public money for parks, hiking trails, farm preservation, wildlife habitat, water conservation and other uses that contain urban sprawl.

Since it began spending open-space bond money in 2006, Guilford has bought or formally agreed to buy eight tracts for a total cost of

$3.8 million, all but one in the northern part of the county.

The county’s biggest open-space deal so far was a

$2.5 million transaction just north of Lake Townsend, a 250-acre tract that eventually will be used for the Mountains-to-Sea Trail and link Greensboro’s water-supply lakes to the new Haw River State Park.

The state park itself is probably the committee’s most dramatic accomplishment, and it occurred at little or no cost to the county, Young said.

Promoting the park to state and local officials was the committee’s first project in the 1990s, before it became an arm of county government.

“It really was the brainchild of the Open Space Committee,” Young said of the new park, which attracted more than

$18 million in state development funds last year.

During 2009, the committee plans to shift its focus more intently to other parts of the county, Young said, including a possible land-buying partnership with the city of High Point that has about $1 million available for open-space purchases.

North Carolina has lost its natural landscape rapidly in recent years, especially in the Piedmont’s more urban counties. State and some local governments answered with formal programs to buy undeveloped land or easements that block private owners from developing their property.

With the economy in turmoil, public sentiment might lean toward cutting back on such initiatives as a government frill. Open-space proponents respond by emphasizing the economic jolt such efforts can give local economies.

Many times, land owners who sell the properties are local residents who then spend or reinvest their proceeds in the regional economy.

In addition, advocates say open space pays for itself by making the rest of the community more attractive to relocating businesses, travelers and people from other regions moving to the Tar Heel State.

“The bottom line is that conservation funding is necessary to keep our state moving ahead,” said Katherine Skinner of The Nature Conservancy in Raleigh.

Guilford’s open space committee began a decade ago as an unofficial forum for residents worried by Guilford’s swiftly urbanizing landscape.

Over time, the group evolved into an appointed advisory board under the county Parks and Recreation Commission and the commissioners.

With the help of county planner Alex Ashton, the committee scouts suitable property, works with land owners who are willing to sell or donate their land, and recommends purchases to the park board and the commissioners, who have final say.

But similar efforts in Charlotte and the Triangle have become an entrenched part of their local governments in a way the Guilford program has yet to achieve.

Wake County, for example, has had three bond referendums for open space since 2000 that gave planners in the Raleigh area nine times more money than Guilford’s program.

“The lowest approval margin we got was 71 percent in favor,” Chris Snow, director of Wake’s open space effort, said of the votes.

Wake has protected 4,531 acres through 102 purchases over the years, Snow said.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg planners seek out desirable open space using a computer program with satellite imaging. Planners can use the system to quickly find all undeveloped land near neighborhoods that lack open space, said Michael Kirschman, manager of the CharMeck Division of Natural Resources.

“It’s a more strategic process,” Kirschman said. “We actually have a targeted list of properties. We approach the owner. If there isn’t any interest (in selling), no problem, we just move on to the next property on our list.”

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