• 2005 APA alumni reception infromation
• Alumna to receive APA Award
• Planner lauded for growth tools (Roger Waldon)
• DCRP Workshops lead to on the ground success!
• Pounding home a lesson - UNC Habitat
• Jobs, jobs, and more jobs!
• On-line: 2005 New East News & Report

Countdown the days until the opening of the APA annual conference Moscone Center, San Francisco March 19-23 Conference Program

Alumni reception information
Monday, March 21 from 7:00-9:00 pm
Maya (Main Dining Room), 303 2nd Street at Harrison

The reception covers beer/wine/soft drinks plus a generous selection of hors d' oeuvres.
Cost is $35, which includes direct costs of the reception plus reduced Alumni Association dues.
Current students and recent grads (5 years) at $20.


Alumna to receive APA Award
Virginia A. Faust (MRP '83), AICP, will receive the APA’s 2005 Small Town & Rural Planning Award for Excellence at
the annual conference in San Francisco.  The award will be given for her work at the N.C. Division of Community
Assistance.  The awarded project, funded by the Appalachian Regional Commission, consists of three
presentations: Designing Better Places, Making Buildings Fit, and Recreating Neighborhoods.

The first presentation, Designing Better Places, is intended to introduce people to general design principles using
illustrations and photographs.  Pre-World War II pedestrian scale development is compared to post-War auto-centric
design.  The presentation concludes with examples of what communities across the country are doing to design
better places for people and cars.  Her second presentation, Making Buildings Fit, focuses on examples of good
commercial development and redevelopment.  The third presentation, Recreating Neighborhoods: Putting the
Pieces Together looks at several physical elements that make up a good neighborhood.

Congratulations Ginny!


Photographers needed
Please feel free to submit conference and alumni reception digital photos to udo@unc.edu.

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Roger Waldon developed zoning laws to curb urban sprawl and helped create the rural buffer. Staff photo by Shawn Rocco		Planner lauded for growth tools The town's planning director for 21 years will leave for consulting post. By Matt Dees Chapel Hill News Wednesday, March 2, 2005 As he has countless times in his 21 years as the town’s planning director, Roger Waldon (MRP '76) was called to the podium Monday night to answer a council member’s question.  “Now listen carefully,” Councilwoman Dorothy Verkerk said.  “If I get you a guitar solo with Aerosmith, would you delay your retirement for five years?”
“You got it,” Waldon replied amid laughter.   Barring that dream-come-true scenario for the guitar-shredding planner, Waldon will leave his post June 1 to take a job with a Chapel Hill consulting firm.  His colleagues say his work ethic, encyclopedic knowledge of town ordinances and good- natured demeanor will be sorely missed. “He’s very good at taking complex matters and making them very clear so you understand them,” Verkerk said in a Tuesday interview. “He has this institutional memory that is priceless. That is irreplaceable..." (read more)

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DCRP Workshops lead to on the ground success!
message from:
Will Allen (MRP ’95)
Director of Strategic Conservation and GIS
The Conservation Fund

For those of you who participated in the 2001 and 2002 DCRP workshop classes with myself, Ronda Ryznar
and Dan Rodriguez that completed green infrastructure plans for Kinston-Lenoir County workshops, I wanted
to pass along an update from my colleague Mikki Sager.

Mikki saw Ralph Clark, the Kinston City Manager, who said the plans had been largely implemented.  Ralph was
very pleased to let her know that the two green infrastructure plans that TCF/DCRP did for Kinston under the
River Communities in Recovery project (following Hurricane Floyd) have been getting followed and implemented.

The eight junk yards in the floodplain have been purchased, one of the biggest areas has been turned into soccer
fields that are being used by the rapidly growing population of Hispanic residents; and other residents are beginning
to join them.  The "checkerboard" properties that were identified by the GI plan are being bought with Clean Water
Management Trust Fund monies and will be turned into a large recreation and eco-tourism area.  The bottomland
just across from the downtown area now has a planetarium that has been flood-proofed; and the buyout properties
that adjoin the low-income and minority neighborhoods along Adkins Creek have been turned into a community
gardening project where master gardeners are being trained and they are then working with children and young
adults on the community gardens.

Mr. Clark invited TCF/DCRP back any time we want -- they are excellent advocates for green infrastructure
planning now!  These plans are available for review on a Conservation Fund sponsored Web site:
http://www.greeninfrastructure.net/?article=2031