George Chapman, far right, Raleigh's planning director, attends an informal session in 2003 at the Raleigh Urban Design Center to discuss preliminary plans for Fayetteville Street Mall.

24 years wasn't in his plans
The News & Observer
By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall, Staff Writer
Photo by Harry Lynch

RALEIGH -- George Chapman (MRP '63) never expected
to spend 24 years in Raleigh as its planning director.

Professional planners aim for objectivity in the
communities where they work.  Chapman figured he'd
hang around for five years, then move on before he got
too attached.  But he found a city in the midst of
transforming itself from a sleepy capital to a boom
town of 330,000, and Chapman's job changed every
half-decade.



He never left.  And he came to love the city for its quality of life, cultural activities and engaged
residents.  Chapman, called the dean of Triangle planning, will retire today (February 28, 2005).
"You can point to almost everything that has happened in Raleigh, and chances are good that it may
not have happened without George or it might not have been as good," said John Hodges-Copple,
planning director for the Triangle J Council of Governments.

Chapman, 64, is known for his skill in navigating the often-tricky waters of city planning.  He has been
a quiet but central figure in major rezoning cases and contentious community conversations.  He
generally managed to stay out of the fray by delicately guiding discussions and laying out facts.
At the same time, he changed the way Raleigh did business.  He turned the city's Comprehensive
Plan from a dusty guide on the shelf to a dynamic document that maps out long-term growth and
major city investments in roads, water and sewer lines, parks and other infrastructure.

"George Chapman has had more influence on growth in the Raleigh area than anyone else I can think
of," said Mayor Charles Meeker, who served on the City Council in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Engaged residents
Chapman came to Raleigh from West Palm Beach, Fla., where he served as its planning director for
a couple of years.  West Palm Beach residents didn't seem invested in their community, he said;
there was little reaction to new proposals unless it was negative.  But in Raleigh, he found something
different.  Raleigh residents filled neighborhood meetings and public hearings.  They were engaged in
discussions about the city.  "I felt invigorated by how much people cared about the community," he
said.

Chapman shepherded the city through major changes and growth.  In the 1980s, residents were
anticipating that big growth would come.  At the time, Raleigh didn't extend much past Millbrook Road
to the north and the Beltline to the south.  The community was changing, Chapman said, and residents
realized they were becoming part of an international economy.  They worked on economic
development, environmental and growth issues.  "People were aware that the economy was changing
rapidly, and so, I think, they were concerned that we were ready for that to make sure we knew what
direction we were going," Chapman said.

By the 1990s, Chapman was managing rapid growth as the region boomed.  Zoning cases nearly
tripled, from 45 in 1991 to a peak of 127 in 1996.  Instead of working on new projects case by case,
Chapman led as the city created systematic approaches to development.  These approaches include
so-called conditional-use zoning cases, which allow developers to set special conditions for their
properties regarding trees, stormwater or design issues, and neighborhood plans that seek to
establish common development goals for an entire community.

Now, Raleigh is seeing a different kind of growth.  More projects, such as the North Hills Mall
redevelopment and the Progress Energy tower downtown, involve a mix of homes, shopping and
offices.  Chapman said the controversial Neal Coker project on Wade Avenue in 2001, which the City
Council rejected after months of debate, helped jump-start the community's acceptance of mixed-use
development.  The massive Coker project would have mixed high-rise homes, offices and shops on 15
acres.  A scaled-back version is now being built.  The project revealed how important the issues of
growth are to the community.  "It just raised the awareness of the community manyfold about what
those projects were," Chapman said.

Private views
Publicly, Chapman tends to keep his views to himself.  In contrast with the policy of planning
departments in some other communities, Chapman and his staff do not recommend the endorsement
or rejection of zoning cases.  The job of planners, Chapman says, is to lay out facts and let the
politicians and community make the decisions.  "I never remember one time where he tried to get me
to go in any direction," said Dickie Thompson, a former Planning Commission chairman.  Chapman
notes some missteps leaders have made.  He said the city lost opportunities when the state art
museum moved from downtown to Blue Ridge Road in 1983 and when the RBC Center, which opened
in 1999, went to West Raleigh instead of downtown.  The decisions robbed the city of the kind of
synergy and development the projects could have created downtown, he said.  "They are costly to us
now," Chapman said.  Still, he says, he doesn't wring his hands over the decisions.  The city created
a guide for land around the RBC Center that maps out growth there.  And he praises efforts to create
an art park at the museum.  "It's a very different kind of impact on the community," he said.

He says the region's developers and community leaders tend to be conservative and not accept rapid
change.  But he warns that the city's and region's low-density, automobile-dependent development
pattern will need to change, particularly to take advantage of the region's planned commuter rail system.
"If we don't move rapidly to reshape our development practices, it won't be as successful as it can be,"
he says.

Though Chapman will leave his job and plans to travel, he doesn't expect to move away.  Raleigh, he
says, has many of the benefits of a large city - symphony, ballet and a vibrant rock music scene -and
not as many of the problems, including overwhelming traffic and high levels of concentrated poverty.
"We have those issues," he says, but they're not nearly as bad as in larger cites.  And, he says, citing
recent efforts to address homelessness, Raleigh remains engaged in fixing the problems.
"There is a kind of an optimism in the community that we can deal with problems.  We can be our own
masters.  It's not hopeless," he said.  "People understand the depth of the challenges, but they are
willing to take them on."




Reprinted with permission from The News & Observer, North Carolina
By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall
Photo by Mel Nathanson

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