Urban designer David Walters will be the featured speaker Monday, Nov. 29, at the Catawba Center for the Environment’s Clean Air Lecture Series.
Walters, who is also an architect, town planner and professor at UNC-Charlotte, will speak at 7:15 p.m. on “Designing Our Way to Cleaner Air.” A 6:45 reception will precede the presentation, which is free and open to the public. It will be held in Room 300 of the Center for the Environment facility on the Catawba College campus.
A native of England, Walters holds undergraduate and graduate degrees with honors in architecture and urban design from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He taught and practiced in England where he won national awards for housing and urban design. In 1983 he moved the United States, teaching a practicing in Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma before joining the UNC-Charlotte faculty in 1990.
Walters has helped a number of North Carolina towns – including Davidson, Cornelius, Huntersville, Mooresville, Conover and Mocksville – to create new town plans and zoning ordinances that incorporate sustainable development practices. He has developed large-scale development plans, development regulations and zoning guidelines for the city of Raleigh and other jurisdictions around the state’s capital city and has also completed a detailed neighborhood plan and zoning regulations for Greenville, S.C.
He co-authored the book “Design First: Design-based Planning for Communities” with his wife, artist and writer Linda Brown, and wrote sections on Traditional Neighborhood Development and Transit-Oriented Development for the Atlanta Regional Commission’s “Smart Growth Toolkit.” His work in north Mecklenburg County has been featured in a PBS documentary.
The Catawba Center for the Environment is spearheading the Clean Air Initiative in cooperation with the Rowan Sustainable Community Development Commission. Rowan, Mecklenburg, Iredell, Cabarrus, Union, Gaston, Lincoln, Davie and Davidson are among 32 counties in the state that do not meet federal air quality standards.
Sponsors of the Clean Air Initiative include F&M Bank, Central Carolina Bank, Wachovia Bank, Rowan Bank, Bank of North Carolina, Power Curbers Inc., the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, the Blanche & Julian Robertson Family Foundation Inc., the County of Rowan, the City of Salisbury, Fred and Alice Stanback and Catawba College.
