Following the wild ride of the redistricting process for our congressional and state legislative districts, the process is now underway for redistricting of City Council districts, which must be done for the 2023 City Council elections. Maps have been issued showing the new proposed districts, and hearings are being held and online submissions are being accepted to allow the public to weigh in on the proposed changes. Changes in the population of each district require changes in the lines to keep the population among districts roughly even.

While some fairly substantial changes are proposed to district boundary lines in other parts of the city, those currently proposed for our neighborhoods of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo are relatively minor. They would involve moving a section of Greenwich Village around Washington Square and parts of NoHo, currently in the 1st Council District (currently represented by Christopher Marte), into the 3rd Council District (currently represented by Erik Bottcher). Otherwise the 1st and 3rd District boundaries in our neighborhoods would remain unchanged, and the boundaries of the 2nd Council District (currently represented by Carlina Rivera) would remain entirely unchanged in our neighborhoods.

One upside of the proposed new districts: they would finally correct the current vast imbalance in population in our districts put in place by the last redistricting, which meant that for the last 10 years our neighborhoods had significantly diluted voting power and representation in the City Council. The new districts would almost all have nearly the exact same population, except the three Staten Island districts, which would continue to be underpopulated and thus overrepresented, with disproportionately greater voting power, in the City Council.

There will also be another primary election in New York for newly drawn congressional and state senate districts on August 23. While Village Preservation as a 501(c)(3) organization by law cannot recommend or endorse candidates, we do strongly urge the public to educate themselves and vote in these incredibly important and likely very low-turnout elections that will probably determine who holds these two offices.