Redistricting Commission Sends Maps to City Council that Reduce Downtown Voting Power and Split Greenwich Village

The NYC Redistricting Commission has approved its final maps for the new City Council and sent them to the Council for their review and possible approval. The maps were unchanged in terms of our neighborhoods from those narrowly voted down in September, retaining the problematic elements of splitting Greenwich Village at Sixth Avenue between District 3 to the west (currently represented by Erik Bottcher) and District 2 to the East (currently represented by Carlina Rivera), and of diminishing the voting power of downtown residents by overpopulating our districts as compared to others across the city by as much as 5% (the higher the population of any district, the lower the voting power each of its residents). The preliminary July maps released by the Commission kept all of Greenwich Village west of Fifth Avenue in a single district (the 3rd) and kept the population inequality between our districts and the citywide average to about 1% (our districts currently have as much as 20–30% more people than some other districts due to an unequal redistricting a decade ago and explosive population growth in our districts).

In its deliberations, the Commission acknowledged receiving hundreds of letters from those alerted by Village Preservation objecting to moving the district boundary line to Sixth Avenue, and considered moving it back to Fifth Avenue, but ultimately did not. The Commission also kept in place the overpopulation of downtown districts that resulted from residents of the Upper East Side and Sutton Place objecting to the July maps that placed parts of their neighborhoods in a district shared with parts of Queens — a move necessary to balance population among districts.

The maps approved by the Redistricting Commission now go to the City Council, where they are likely to face further revisions. Village Preservation has written to members of the Council urging that the maps be changed to address these issues. It’s critical that the City Council hear from you NOW urging them to make these changes, before the maps are locked in for the next decade.

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October 11, 2022