As D.C. embarks on the decennial process of redrawing its political boundaries based on the latest census, one major political and cultural change has become apparent: The District will no longer have any ward located entirely east of the Anacostia River.
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Wards 7 and 8 — commonly referred to collectively as “east of the river” — are heavily symbolic in local politics. The community east of the Anacostia remains almost entirely Black, even as Black residents are no longer the majority in a city once known as Chocolate City.
The segment east of the river is plagued by problems including higher poverty, more gun violence and worse health outcomes — meaning that politicians who want to address those issues rely on targeting resources to Wards 7 and 8 to reach needy populations.
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Not for long. Once the redistricting process is complete — after weeks of highly contentious hearings that are still underway — Ward 8 will almost certainly include not just underprivileged communities like Anacostia and Congress Heights, but some of the District’s newest developments with affluent residents, such as the gleaming just-built towers of Navy Yard or the Southwest Waterfront. Ward 7, too, will most likely expand its tiny outgrowth on the western side of the river.
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“Our issues are not always aligned — when it comes to what the Southwest Waterfront, my area, is really interested in … their interests [east of the river] will definitely clash,” said Lynettra Artis, one in a long line of Ward 6 residents who spent the day Wednesday asking D.C. Council members not to move their neighborhoods into Ward 7 or 8. “That’s what I’m scared of. I don’t want there to be a cultural and political clash where there doesn’t have to be.”
The end of the days of exclusively east-of-the-river wards is inevitable, a result of a decade of explosive development in some D.C. neighborhoods and near-stagnation in others that has left the city’s eight wards unbalanced.
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Ward 6, a sprawling ward that stretches from Shaw to Southwest to Capitol Hill, grew in population by more than 40 percent over the past decade, fueled by huge development projects along the city’s waterfront, while Wards 7 and 8 scarcely increased in population. That leaves the easternmost wards below the legal limit, and Ward 6 well above it.
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Something has to change. But what the redrawn wards will mean for residents on both sides of the river is up for debate, and the conversation among some residents has turned bitter.
Elissa Silverman (I-At Large), who chairs the council committee tasked with redrawing the map, said almost every single email she has received from residents of any ward asks that their home not be moved to a different ward — particularly the emails from those in more racially and economically diverse wards whose neighborhoods might become part of Ward 7 or Ward 8.
“There’s outrage at even the suggestion they might switch wards,” Silverman said. “We want to get underneath, is race a part of your reluctance? When someone says to me, ‘You can’t change my ward,’ I say, ‘Why?’ ”
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At a hearing Wednesday focused on Ward 6 — the last of eight hearings, and in some ways the most high-stakes, since Ward 6′s boundaries will change the most — residents expressed a wide range of reasons they don’t want to be moved out of the ward.
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Some talked about liking their council member or knowing the staffers in city agencies like the Department of Transportation who specifically focus on Ward 6. Others talked of concerns about the right to park their car in the ward they live in, or the importance of keeping entire neighborhoods, such as the sprawling Capitol Hill, under the same political representation. Under some draft maps that the council is considering, the Hill East neighborhood from 15th Street to the Anacostia would become part of Ward 7.
“We’re a community. And when you draw an arbitrary line, which that is, you’re dividing a neighborhood,” said advisory neighborhood commissioner Denise Krepp, one of many who objected to Hill East moving to Ward 7.
Silverman announced three maps on Monday that her committee is considering, though she said the council may choose to incorporate elements from each of the maps rather than adopt any of them wholesale. All three make no changes to Wards 3 and 4, and adjust the ward boundaries around the Shaw neighborhood as well as on each side of the Anacostia.
Residents of any ward can sign up this week to testify at one final hearing on Friday, before the council votes on a complete proposal in December.
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During Wednesday’s hearing, commenters watching live on Facebook expressed dismay at some of the Ward 6 residents’ insistence that their neighborhoods should not be redistricted — and what they said was an undercurrent of wealthier residents not wanting to be associated with poorer areas of the city.
“I heard some comments and feedback expressed in Ward 6 and Ward 5 that were really quite disheartening and sad, that people felt so strongly against being associated with east of the river,” Jamila White, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 8, said in an interview after she testified in the Ward 8 hearing. “I hope they look at some of their biases, some of their hate and racism.”
If a resident of Ward 5 or 6 finds his street is now labeled “Ward 7” or “Ward 8,” White said, “You don’t actually live [east of the river]. You’re not going to have to worry about drive-bys. I am, even with this redistricting.”
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She said adding wealthier neighborhoods to Ward 8 could have some tangible benefits for people in her community: When advisory neighborhood commissions negotiate community benefit agreements with developers constructing new buildings in the District, they sometimes include clauses requiring the developer to preferentially hire residents of the ward where the building will be built. If developers on the Wharf or in Navy Yard have to hire residents of Ward 8, lower-income communities could benefit.
At the hearing, residents and council members also discussed what redistricting might mean for political representation — young White renters in those new developments would move into Trayon White Sr.’s Ward 8 district, and Hill East residents may move into Vincent C. Gray’s Ward 7 district. Neither White nor Gray responded to requests for an interview about the redistricting of their wards.
Most agreed that the reshuffling would not make much change. Both Wards 7 and 8 will still have most of their voters in their traditional east-of-the-river communities. Under all three proposals, Ward 7 would remain at least 83 percent Black, and Ward 8 at least 78 percent Black.
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“I can’t see what the people in Ward 6 would want that the people in Ward 8 wouldn’t want,” said Lorraine Stanislaus, a homeowner in Congress Heights. “We want dog parks. We want bike lanes. I have a bike.”
Brittany Cummings, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 8, said she hoped the redrawn boundaries wouldn’t cover up the problems that will still persist east of the river.
Take the lack of grocery stores in Ward 8, Cummings said. If the Harris Teeter in Navy Yard becomes part of the ward, that increases the count of grocers in the ward on paper — but doesn’t do much good for people who still live just as far from a store as they always did.
“Now that gets to be called Ward 8,” she said, “and I still am not getting anything in exchange for that.”