Waldon-Planner lauded for growth tools

Roger Waldon (MRP '76) accepts a DCRP pint glass from
department chair Emil Malizia during a recent visit to DCRP.
Roger was inducted to the FAICP in 2004.

Planner lauded for growth tools
The town's planning director for 21 years will leave
for consulting post.
By Matt Dees
Chapel Hill News

As he has countless times in his 21 years as
the town’s planning director, Roger Waldon 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..."

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“ The new person is going to have a huge learning curve.” With major projects like the development of lot 2,
lot 5 and the Wallace Deck downtown and new parking regulations on the horizon, Verkerk said it’s a
particularly bad time to lose Waldon-though she said she couldn’t think of a good time to lose him.

In a town bent on curbing growth and its effects, Waldon has created the tools to meet that goal while
balancing the often-conflicting demands of developers. Development applications for large-scale projects in
Chapel Hill often take years to process. Waldon must both shepherd and scrutinize such projects. “I have
always enjoyed the community dialogue,” he said in a Monday interview. “I don’t find it frustrating at all.
It’s a messy process that we work in, but that’s partly what makes it so good.”

Waldon, 54, who has planning degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and UNC, will take
a job in the Chapel Hill office of Clarion Associates, a national land-use and real estate consulting firm.
“The benefits of planning are fairly remote,” Mayor Kevin Foy said. “You don’t really recognize them in your
daily life. But if you did think about it, what you would see is that it makes it an easier place to live if it’s
well-planned. Roger’s been one of the leader’s of making sure Chapel Hill is well-planned.” Waldon said
he’s most proud of developing zoning laws that he and many others believe have kept urban sprawl in check.

He helped create the rural buffer, which keeps large portions of the town and adjoining areas of the county
at low densities, corralling growth into compact development patterns. A prime example is the density of
Southern Village across U.S. 15-501 from a large area zoned for no more than one house per acre. Waldon
often did find himself butting heads with developers. Scott Kovens, president of Capkov Ventures and Kovens
Construction Company, is hoping to develop a Southern Village-style mixed-use project on the eastern side
of U.S. 15-501, an area in the rural buffer, which allows only one-home-per-acre. “That doesn’t serve the
university, the hospitals the Southern Village people,” Kovens said. “What happens is they leave Chapel Hill
and they don’t leave their tax dollars here and they deteriorate our roads by driving on them all the time.”
Kovens said there’s no bad blood between him and Waldon, though he said he probably will “wait for him to
leave” before broaching his development idea again at Town Hall. “I think we saw things differently,” Kovens
said. “We looked at our obligations to serve the community differently. I believe there’s nothing he cast upon
us that wasn’t something he actually believed. He wasn’t a sheep.”

Roy Williford, Carrboro’s planning director, said the rural buffer plan was a major Waldon achievement. He’s
known Waldon for 30 years and said his counterpart enjoys a good reputation among his peers. “He’s very
well-respected in planning circles,” Williford said. “I would say he rates top notch among any planners within
the state.”

Implementing design guidelines that have improved the town’s aesthetics was another favorite part of the job for
Waldon. He worked with two designers to make sure the Top of the Hill building at the corner of Columbia and
Franklin streets meshed with and enhanced the downtown streetscape. “Every visitor I bring to Chapel Hill, I
show them that building and say, ‘Isn’t that just the way things ought to be?’” Waldon said.

Verkerk pointed to Waldon’s development of the town’s land-use management ordinance, a comprehensive
document that establishes zoning laws for the entire town. After it was implemented in January 2003, some
of the new regulations caused problems. Verkerk said Waldon demonstrated patience as he worked with frustrated
residents to fix the kinks without taking the teeth out of the ordinance. Waldon said he’ll miss the daily bustle of
Town Hall and working with a large staff every day. There are only about five people in the Clarion office, though
he will be traveling up and down the East Coast working with cities on their planning efforts. “The people who
work here are fabulous,” Waldon said. “They’re dedicated. They’re enjoyable to be around. One of the things
I’ll miss the most is the regular daily interaction with a number of wonderful folks.”

Reprint premission given by:
The Chapel Hill News
The News & Observer Publishing Company
Article by Matt Dees