With a slightly shorter job title, Shad Spencer moves up

CHARLOTTE – Six months later, the word “interim” comes off Shad Spencer’s title.

Shad Spencer, zoning administration planning manager for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department, has an eighth-floor office in uptown Charlotte’s Government Center. Photo by Tony Brown

Spencer, 41, and a familiar face to those who have regular dealings with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department, has officially had this convoluted title added to his name: zoning administration planning manager.

Since Sept. 11, he’s had an even longer title: interim zoning administration planning manager.

That’s when Debra Campbell, director of the city’s planning department, appointed Spencer to temporarily take over the duties of Katrina J. Young, who was suddenly transferred without explanation.

Spencer, who was a planning coordinator, is now one of six planning managers working under Campbell in the planning department, which has jurisdiction over the city and some unincorporated areas just outside city limits.

The zoning administration planning manager is considered by many developers to be one of the most powerful positions in the department because its occupant enforces and interprets the zoning ordinance, often making judgment calls.

The Hickory native earned a 1993 undergraduate degree in geography from UNC Charlotte and interned at the city planning department. He worked briefly on municipal planning staffs in Cornelius and the Catawba County town of Long View before returning to the city department in 1996.

In addition to his new duties, Spencer will still occasionally perform his old ones on big, complex or sensitive projects.

He is, for instance, the planning coordinator in charge of the $200 million mixed-used Waverly development proposed for 90 acres in south Charlotte that had a City Council public hearing Monday and now goes to the city Planning Commission’s zoning committee.