After retiring in 2008, Nathan Edelson continued to work on many community issues, including the opposition to a controversial condo project in Chinatown, efforts to come up with a new plan for False Creek South, and supportive housing.Mariner Janes/Supplied
Nathan Edelson, a former Vancouver city planner and never-retired community activist, had a commitment to strengthening neighbourhoods and ensuring social inclusion, making him a mentor and inspiration for city architects, developers and activists alike.
He died this week, after leaving his mark on a diverse array of issues confronting the city over the 25 years of his career: the Downtown Eastside, basement suites, liquor licensing and Chinatown, among others.
“He had an uncanny ability to really bring people together,” said stepson Mariner Janes. “His approach was one of calm and reflective wisdom.”
Tributes have flooded in since Mr. Edelson’s death Sept. 3 at the age of 76 after a brief illness.
“Nathan was completely dedicated to making the city a better place and a more inclusive place,” said Jeff Brooks, the head of social planning in Vancouver for many years and a long-time friend of Mr. Edelson’s.
He famously got along with everyone, always working to see all points of view, but he wasn’t a pushover.
“He was tenacious. If someone at city hall had to be convinced of something, Nathan would work him to death,” said Mr. Brooks.
Former architect Graham McGarva, who got to know him doing development work in Mount Pleasant and then the Downtown South, called him “the effective activist” – someone who fought hard for social inclusion and community benefits that he believed were necessary, but he was also pragmatic and knowledgeable about the realities of development.
A former student and now Vancouver housing planner, Tanya Fink, who called him the single most influential person in her life, said one of his constant reminders to her was how important it is in planning to truly listen to people.
“He gave me so much good advice,” said Ms. Fink, reading aloud past e-mails Mr. Edelson had sent over the years after she studied planning at the University of British Columbia with him in 2008.
“You have to see your opponents as neighbours,” he wrote to her, and: “Live by your principles and instincts but leave room to understand others’ principles and instincts.”
After retiring in 2008, he continued to work on many community issues, including the opposition to a controversial condo project in Chinatown, efforts to come up with a new plan for False Creek South, and supportive housing.
His wife, prominent diversity and Indigenous issues consultant Norma-Jean McLaren, started developing dementia in 2016, and Mr. Edelson dedicated himself to her care, supporting her through experimental treatments and enabling her to live at home until she died last October.
He continued to do community work during her illness and after her death, spending hours at the recent public hearing for the Chinatown condo project, speaking out against aspects of the city’s plan to massively increase density along the Broadway corridor, and arguing against current efforts to change housing policy in the Downtown Eastside to allow for more condo development.
He went on his regular running date with his friend, Mr. Brooks, on the last Saturday in August before starting to feel ill the following Tuesday and being admitted to hospital last Thursday. There, he was diagnosed with HLH (hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis), a rare but often fatal disease where the body’s immune system starts attacking itself. He died Sunday.
Mr. Edelson, born in New York, came to Vancouver in 1972, after getting a master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania in regional science, to work on a PhD at the Simon Fraser University geography department.
A onetime student of renowned U.S. critical geographer David Harvey, he became part of what was called a radical group of students at the then-activist SFU campus.
SFU geography professor Nick Blomley, who has written a paper describing the influence of that group, said Mr. Edelson played a central role.
The group produced a manifesto in 1974 in which Mr. Edelson outlined what the mission of city planning should be: “We believe that local residents should have a decisive level of control over the destiny of that community and that changes adversely affecting those residents without providing significant benefits to the community should be opposed.”
Mr. Edelson helped found Little Mountain Neighbourhood House, then a resource for what was a low-income community, in 1978.
He started working for the city in 1983 and soon became enmeshed in the then-contentious issue of what to do about basement suites, which were technically illegal but widely prevalent in the city.
The council of the day wanted a policy that would limit tenants of basement suites to only family members of owners, remembers former Vancouver planning director Ann McAfee. Mr. Edelson argued against it.
“Nathan saw the need for everyone to have an opportunity to live in that kind of affordable housing. He reminded them that not everyone knows someone who owns a home already.”
Mr. Edelson is survived by his stepchildren, Mariner Janes and Lindsay Hill, his sister, Lynn Principe, and his goddaughter Orleane Twin Abdi. The family will be organizing a memorial service later.