Greensboro names Charlotte planning director Taiwo Jaiyeoba as its next city manager
Greensboro City Council members voted unanimously Tuesday night to name Charlotte planning director Taiwo Jaiyeoba as Greensboro’s next city manager.
Jaiyeoba, who has served as planning director since 2018, was selected to lead Greensboro after a national search. Jaiyeoba appeared virtually during Tuesday’s meeting and gave a short statement to City Council members after they voted 9-0 in support of his appointment.
“It’s an exciting moment for me to be part of something significant,” Jaiyeoba said, adding he couldn’t be there in person because he’s on a planned vacation with his family. He pointed to a number of parts of the city that he has admired from a distance, including active open spaces, and its long-term comprehensive planning.
“The city of Greensboro is poised for great things,” Jaiyeoba said.
Jaiyeoba will be paid $280,000 a year plus an “executive allowance” of $1,000 per month, Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan said. Jaiyeoba succeeds David Parrish, who resigned from the city manager position on June 30. Chris Wilson has been serving in the interim.
Before the vote, Greensboro Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne Johnson said she saw Jaiyeoba as a good fit for the city, which has a population of around 300,000, and that Jaiyeoba will “take us to the next level we need to be.”
“He made an extremely excellent presentation to us,” Johnson said. “Everybody was impressed.”
Charlotte City Manager Marcus Jones called Jaiyeoba’s departure a “bittersweet” one but that he’s proud of his work, according to a news release issued by Greensboro.
“I’m excited for Taiwo and his family and I know he’s going to be very successful in Greensboro,” Jones said, according to the release.
Alyson Craig, who serves as Charlotte’s deputy planning director, will be named interim planning director as the city conducts a national search, according to a letter Jones sent to council members earlier Tuesday. Craig has been deputy director since 2018.
“I know Taiwo’s professional aspirations are to one day lead a large city and this is a great opportunity for him to take that next step in his career,” Jones wrote in the Charlotte City Council letter.
Jaiyeoba will attend Greensboro’s council meeting in person on Jan. 18 for a formal introduction.
Planning aspirations
Jaiyeoba was named Charlotte’s planning director in January 2018 after a national search. At the time, he was an executive at HNTB Corp., an infrastructure consulting firm. Jaiyeoba’s previous jobs include executive director of planning and development in Grand Rapids, Mich., and director of project management and director of planning in Sacramento, Calif.
A native of Nigeria who came to the U.S. in 1996, Jaiyeoba was charged with planning how to handle Charlotte’s growth, as well as rewriting the city’s outdated rules about zoning and land use.
He was the first permanent planning director Charlotte has had since former planning director Debra Campbell was named assistant city manager in September 2014. Jaiyeoba and his wife have seven daughters, and the family relocated to Charlotte in 2015.
In June, the City Council narrowly voted to approve the 2040 Comprehensive Plan, an aspirational land-use document that’s been years in the making. It caused feuding among council members and at least one to call for Jaiyeoba’s firing in the wake of his handling of the plan. Jaiyeoba shrugged off the comments in an interview with the Observer.
This fall, Charlotte got its first peek at a draft of the 608-page Unified Development Ordinance. It’s been available to the public for feedback on what is considered the most substantial overhaul of the city’s zoning and land use policies in recent memory.
On the day of the plan’s release, Jaiyeoba posted to his Twitter account: “Back when I interviewed to be Charlotte’s Planning Director, completing the Unified Development Ordinance was The Thing.”
He called it a significant moment that a city the size of Charlotte could complete a long-term comprehensive plan and an overhaul of regulatory tools in the same time period.
“We should all be proud of this moment,” he wrote on Twitter.
This story was originally published December 21, 2021 at 2:54 PM.
