Undergraduate courses on Land Development

At North Carolina University Charlotte, the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department Chair, Dr. David Young, David Naylor and I created a five course land development concentration for the students. The concentration includes Sustainable Design and Stormwater Management and I had the opportunity to create three of the five courses:

Land Development I – this course is an overview of the real estate development industry, the role of the land development engineer and the interconnection of infrastructure elements. This course includes hands-on class exercises including the art of contouring. Students are required to make presentations.

Land Development Design – Uses a base plan with boundary, topography and lot layout to prepare infrastructure designs for roadways, storm drainage, SWM, water and sewer facilities. Students use AutoCad extensively to prepare designs.

Land Development Studio - This course is designed for civil engineering students to “think outside of the box”. There are three main elements. They prepare a single family lot subdivision, a multifamily site plan and a large-scale property land use plan. They will also have in-class exercises preparing a commercial site plan and a mixed use plan. They are required to present their plan in a “mock” Planning Board environment.

UNCC registration started on Monday of this past week. The Land Development Studio class closed within 2-days with 20 undergraduates and 3 graduate students registering for the class. I am looking forward to teaching this class again next semester. The land development concentration program for civil engineering students has been embraced by the students and supported by the Department. This is the first undergraduate civil engineering land development concentration in the nation!!