Thursday, July 21, 2011

Whither ANC 6C?

As you can read in the Meeting Notes page, one of the ideas discussed at the ANC 6C Community Listening Meeting on July 21 was to move the current ANC 6C SMDs 01, 02, 03 and parts of 08 and 09 to what is currently ANC 2C. This would create a larger Shaw ANC that would generally deal with the community issues west of Union Station. This would create an new Shaw ANC with approximately 14,190 residents. That would translate into 7 SMDs.

Expanded Shaw ANC. Everything in new Ward 6 west of Union Station, railroad tracks and Delaware Ave NE. Composed of all of ANC 2C in new Ward 6, plus ANC 6C SMDs 01, 02, 03, and portions of 08 and 09. Total population = 14,190.




For the sake of argument, if the Shaw ANC expanded as outlined above, the "remains" of ANC 6C would have 10,684 residents. So, that begs the question, what do we do with ANC 6C? Under the this Shaw ANC scenario, there are at least five options for ANC 6C:

1. Leave ANC 6C with 10,684 residents that would translate into 5 SMDs (2,000 per SMD). This is what the map below shows.


2. Expand the ANC 6C eastern boarder from 7th/8th Streets to 9th Street, NE to add approximately 2,880 residents from ANC 6A. That would translate to an new ANC 6C with approximately 13,560 with 7 SMDs (within the acceptable 5% deviation)

3. Expand the ANC 6C southern border from East Capitol Street to C Street, SE (retain the 7th/8th Street eastern border) to add approximately 2,000 residents from ANC 6B. That would translate to a new ANC 6C of 12,670 residents with 6 SMDs.

4. Expand ANC 6C both the eastern/southern borders under some other configuration to absorb approximately 1,500 residents from each of ANC 6A and ANC 6B.

5. Or, there may be another alternative?

Hypothetical ANC 6C (without any eastern or southern expansion). Current ANC 6C east of Union Station, railroad tracks and Delaware Ave NE. Composed of 6C04, 05, 06, 07, and portions of 08. Total population = 10,684.




To be clear, the W6TF has not made any decisions regarding the new ANC boundaries. Making the hypothetical assumption of a larger Shaw ANC to discuss potential impacts to ANC 6C, along with the secondary impacts to ANC 6A and ANC 6B, is the goal of this post.


Posted by Joe Fengler with a map assist from Cody Rice.

7 comments:

  1. I currently live in the old ANC 6C that would remain and really would not want to expand southward. I pay far more attention to what is happening on H St. and would love to have more say as the development comes east on H St blocks away from my house. than I have concerns about the southern end. However, I live on the eastern boundary of the ANC now, so that may just be my bias and those who live on the southern end might want to annex their boundary. While I spend time in SE, I don't really consider it my neighborhood like I do NE. Given the conversation's I've heard, that is the preference for organizing ANCs. That said, I appreciate moving the NW side to its own ANC, as I am also not always that interested in what was going on in that direction.

    As a side note, thanks for starting this blog and for your transparency both when you were an ANC Chair (miss your emails) and now.

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  2. Another item that you don't mention is that this scenario also splits up 6C04 at the railroad tracks. It currently extends to North Cap. While the tracks are a natural boundary, so is the current border, and the tracks are becoming less of a border with the new wider sidewalks and (soon) added lighting and artwork. Meanwhile, North Cap will probably always be a major, 6 lane road.

    As a 6C04 resident I would prefer 6C extend to North Cap, because the NY Ave Metro is my station, and I consider the center of my neighborhood to be the corner of First and M.


    I also want to reiterate that I appreciate this excellent website and transparent process.

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  3. Tony thanks for your comment. One of the issues we are dealing with is boundary "placement". What we heard at the ANC 6C community listening meeting is that "Hill" commissioners are focused on zoning and development that leans towards historic districts and row houses (H Street, notwithstanding). The other comment we heard was the belief that the development taking place west of Union Station would look more like the development that Shaw is currently undergoing. That being said, I certainly will make sure we look at using North Capitol as another option. Your suggestion might actually help solve the "whither" 6C question. This is exactly the input I was hoping the blog would generate. It will be interesting to hear from the Shaw Community Listening Meeting Monday. One of the questions I want to ask is "What does Shaw see as their eastern border?

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  4. Last post (2:08) was from Joe Fengler

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  5. Another potential issue is that because of the extremely low 2010 population of NoMa, the SMDs in that area will remain very large until 2020. By then, there could be 10,000 people in a single SMD, if the border is either the courant one at North Cap or is shifted to the train tracks. Maybe First Street NE would therefore be a better compromise border?

    Also, we are certainly lucky to have so many great historic properties and districts in our midst. That includes not just the Hill, but also Mount Vernon and Shaw. As a Planning and Zoning Committee member for 6C, I've seen that many of our HPRB cases are from our NW section. I think the NoMa development is very different from both areas, while the areas of 6C (and 6A) North of H are probably more similar to Shaw than they are to other parts of the Hill.

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  6. Has the redistricting committee considered adding a fifth ANC into the mix? I know we're discussing ANC6C in this thread, but if we put forward a 6E, we could restrain the size of the ANCs from the burgeoning 11+ members to a more reasonable 7/9 size. A hypothetical 6E from S. Cap to the southern side of Penn Ave (a combo of 6D and 6B presently, pop 11048 per 2010 census, and considerably higher already) - which would make a 5 or 6 person ANC. As larger geographic chunk, say, south of Independence, would be 18.6k (or approx 9 SMDs). Either option would, of course, have cascading effects across the Ward and ought to yield more workable numbers of SMD reps in each area.

    As the Ward population grew from 35 SMDs worth to anywhere between 39-41 worth (even before we include Kingman), crafting a 5th ANC might be a worthwhile exercise.

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  7. Also - all that said, a slightly smaller Shaw ANC, stopping at Mass Ave (but otherwise as-drawn, pop 13393) could also also form a 7 person SMD (albeit a thin one, at around 1900/ea), while leaving another few hundred folk to help boost ANC6C's numbers - limiting the cascade effect.

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