Mayor Jackson brought Eplan back into city government as Planning and Development Commissioner in 1991 with the intent to prepare for the 1996 Olympic Games and to leverage those games in order to transform the City.
He helped draft the national legislation setting up the Martin Luther King Jr. Active in housing policy, he chaired HUD’s national conference on Reducing the Development Costs of Housing and was influential in Georgia’s state legislation on affordable housing, manufactured housing and state-wide building codes, and the creation of the Georgia Residential Finance Authority. Serving as Commissioner of Budget and Planning under Mayor Maynard Jackson from 1974 through 1978, Eplan launched Atlanta’s annual Comprehensive Development Plan, Atlanta’s first Bikeway Plan, and set up Atlanta’s Neighborhood Planning Unit (NPU) system, pioneering a new approach to citizen involvement that became an often-copied national model and which remains influential today.Įplan directed the Graduate City Planning Program at Georgia Tech beginning in 1978 and continued to teach there and later at Emory until 1990. He prepared the economic feasibility study for the original Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, later regretting the displacement that project caused.Įplan was the first president of the Georgia Chapter of the American Institute of Planners (AIP), now the Georgia Planning Association then vice-president and later twice president of AIP nationally, steering AIP’s merger with the American Society of Planning Officials. Eplan’s TSADS concept was the first system-wide planning for what we now know as transit-oriented development. He spearheaded Atlanta’s first neighborhood revitalization plans for Ansley Park, Vine City, Sherwood Forest, Adamsville, and Peoplestown and was a leader in the original design of MARTA. His legacy is broad and deep his influence as a mentor, role model, and friend touched many.Ī fourth-generation Atlantan and proud graduate of Boys High and Emory University, Eplan entered the planning profession at the University of North Carolina and following military service, joined Phillip Hammer’s consultancy and later Eric Hill Associates. Eplan was a singular force in Georgia planning for more than 50 years, serving as Atlanta’s planning commissioner twice, president of the American Institute of Planners, and director of the city planning program at Georgia Tech. Leon Eplan, FAICP, inaugural president of the Georgia Planning Association, died on 15 April in Atlanta.
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