Monday night, the Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E, representing Burleith, Georgetown, and Hillandale, convened for their monthly meeting at Georgetown Visitation School. The commissioners discussed plans for a public recycling program, the Taste of Georgetown, Serve D.C., and the Nation’s Triathlon.

Making Georgetown less of a pain to bike around: fewer potholes, more bike lanes.

Chairman Ron Lewis opened with a report on transportation. He was pleased to announce the accruement of new maintenance trucks designed specifically to mend potholes.

“The truck pulls up to a hole and sprays it with various kinds of stuff and it’s dry by the time the truck pulls away,” said Lewis.

Lewis continued his transportation report with the announcement of a new bike lane being designated on M Street from 28th to 14th Streets. He reassured his audience that the lane would not compromise parking along M Street.

“Are you sure? L Street lost a lot of parking when they made a bike lane there,” said Vice-chair Bill Starrels.

Next on the agenda was announcement of a public space recycling program initiated by the Georgetown Business Improvement District. The program will install 160 cans throughout the Georgetown business corridor, from T St to the waterfront.

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Yesterday, Georgetown’s Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) held a meeting at the John A. Wilson Building to kick off the Advisory Neighborhood Commission redistricting process.

Mayor Vincent Gray signed the bill redrawing the city’s eight electoral wards last week. Ward 2 will lose Shaw and gain the area containing the Convention Center.

Now the effort turns to redrawing the single-member districts and boundaries of the ANC’s, local councils that provide official community input on everything from liquor licenses to campus plans.

ANC single-member districts are supposed to represent about 2,000 people. The ANC containing most of Georgetown University has over 3,000 people, and the rest of the dorms are split into two three different single-member districts.

Evans has appointed Georgetown ANC 2E Commissioner Tom Birch to chair the effort in Ward 2. Anyone that expresses interest in serving on the redistricting task force will be allowed to join the task force.

Unlike most wards, the task force will not decide the ANC and single-member district boundaries in plenary, but will divide up into subcommittees based on ANC. Chairs of the respective ANC’s will lead each subcommittee, and the citizen association leaders will serve as co-chairs.

In Georgetown, Commissioner Ron Lewis of ANC 2E will chair the subcommittee, and Jennifer Altemus of the Citizen’s Association of Georgetown and Lenore Rubino of the Burleith Citizen’s Association will co-chair. All three have serious misgivings about the University’s 2010 Campus Plan.

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In the next couple of weeks, D.C. will redraw the boundaries of its 37 Advisory Neighborhood Commissions – bodies that provide formal community input on everything from liquor licenses to campus plans.

On Tuesday, the D.C. Council altered the boundaries of its eight electoral wards to reflect the 2010 Census returns. Each Councilmember will now appoint a “ward task force” to redraw ANC boundaries and those of the single-member districts that individual ANC commissioners represent.

According to guidelines issued by the Council, each single-member district must contain between 1900 and 2100 residents.

Georgetown Metropolitan‘s Topher Matthews has provided a helpful breakdown of current population estimates in each single-member district in ANC 2E, which includes the University’s Main Campus:

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After ongoing negative feedback by residents of surrounding communities to Georgetown’s 2010 Campus Plan, the university has introduced a number of amendments to the plan in a Pre-Hearing Submission filed with the DC Zoning Commission on March 31. The submission modifies parts of the Campus Plan, which is due to be taken up by the Zoning Commission starting April 14.

Most significantly, the submission calls for adding 250 undergraduate beds either on-campus or at a satellite location outside of residential portions of zip code 20007, and for relocating 1,000 students in the Graduate School of Continuing Studies away from the main campus to satellite locations. Other changes include commitments by the University to reduce its proposed enrollment cap from 16,133 students to 15,000 students and to construct an internal loop roadway to help route university buses away from neighborhood streets.

In an interview with the Hoya and the Voice, Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson said that the changes were in direct response to concerns raised by members of the community and officials at the D.C. Department of Transportation and Office of Planning.

“We really believe we’ve worked […] to respond to some of the issues and concerns that these stakeholders have raised with us,” Olson said.

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