City Unveils New Ward Lines

A few St. Louis Park neighborhoods will be on the move.

The City Council preliminarily approved new ward boundaries on Monday night, a process triggered by . Council was unanimous in its vote, but the new boundaries still have to pass a procedural second vote on April 2.

State law requires that wards be equal, or nearly equal in size, so that means that Ward 2—which is currently the city's largest ward and is represented by councilwoman Anne Mavity—will lose the most number of residents under the plan, going from 12,068 to right around 11,300.

This was done by moving the Triangle Neighborhood into Ward 1.

By contrast, councilwoman Julia Ross’ Fourth Ward stands to gain the most, going from 10,536 to around 11,300 residents. The plan calls for the Blackstone and Cedarhurst neighborhoods to come over from Ward 1 to accomplish this.

Here's a complete look at the proposed moving and shaking:

• WARD 1 would keep existing neighborhoods of Bronx Park, Birchwood, Lake Forest, Fern Hill, and Sorenson. Triangle neighborhood would be added. Blackstone and Cedarhurst neighborhoods located north of the Burlington Northern RR would move to Ward 4.
• WARD 2 would keep existing neighborhoods of Elmwood, Wolfe Park, Minikahda Oaks, Minikahda Vista, Browndale, Brookside, Creekside, Meadowbrook, and Brooklawns. South Oak Hill Park neighborhood would be added and Triangle neighborhood would be moving to Ward 1.
• WARD 3 would keep existing neighborhoods of Lenox, Oak Hill, Aquila, Amhurst, Minnehaha, Cobblecrest, and all of Texa Tonka. South Oak Hill neighborhood would move to Ward 2.
• WARD 4 would cover all residents north of Burlington Northern RR and would keep existing neighborhoods of Shelard Park, Kilmer, Westdale, Crestview, Westwood Hills, Cedar Manor, Willow Park, Pennsylvania Park, Eliot, and Eliot View. Blackstone and Cedarhurst would be added. The existing northern portion of TexaTonka neighborhood would move to Ward 3 to keep Texa Tonka neighborhood intact.

City precincts also stand to be adjusted as part of the plan. St. Louis Park would go down from 17 precincts to 16 with the council's final approval. This would mean that would only house one precinct, and that Ward 1 would come down from five precincts to four. (See the attached PDF for a complete description of the 16 proposed precincts)

Upon council's final approval on April 2, the new ward and precinct lines will be used for the upcoming primary election on Aug. 14. The general election will be on Nov. 6.