Foggy Bottom and the West End will be reshuffled in the city’s redistricting process and receive two more representatives on the area’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission.
The addition of two members onto ANC 2A stems from the realignment process D.C. began for its boundaries after 2010 census data showed population increases in the neighborhoods. Last year, the census counted college students as District residents for the first time, a change from previous years that tallied students under their home states.
The city’s population grew 5.2 percent over a decade, according to the census numbers, reaching 601,723 from 572,059. GW sits in Ward 2, which saw the largest population spike out of all eight wards in D.C., increasing 16 percent to 79,915.
At a public hearing for the plan Sept. 12, committee members heading up the redistricting – commissioners Asher Corson and Rebecca Coder and active local resident Barbara Kahlow – offered attendees a map of the redistributed area. The final plan will be submitted to the D.C. Council.
The plan breaks up Foggy Bottom and the West End to create two additional single-member districts, and thus establishes two new commissioner spots, due to the population increase. Single-member districts, represented by commissioners, divide the ward into smaller, individual constituencies.
Elections for the new commissioners will take place in Nov. 2012.
“I think that it is really noteworthy that the task force was able to come up with a plan that it seems everyone was able to support so far,” Corson said, adding that no residents or commissioners have shown serious opposition to the proposal.
Kahlow said the Foggy Bottom and West End neighborhoods are not large enough to tack on more than two additional single-member districts, meaning some will have more buildings and larger populations than others, but by just a slight margin.
She added that students reside in as many as four of the eight single-member districts under ANC 2A.
“There is no perfect solution and we did the best that we could,” Corson said.
