Denver City Council approved its final redistricting map after a public hearing Tuesday night in a 12-1 vote.

The second draft of Map D will be adopted and effective for Denver’s April 2023 municipal elections next year. The only vote against the map came from Councilmember Candi CdeBaca.

Councilmember Chris Herndon, who was newly elected to Denver City Council the last time it went through redistricting about 10 years ago, said he is proud of how much effort went into the process this time around.

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“The work that we did a decade ago compared to the work that we just did in the past few months doesn’t even compare,” Herndon said. “… We were ensuring that community was going to be first and foremost during this process.”

Throughout the past year council met with community members to get feedback on what is most important to them in a redistricting map. The map that was adopted, Map D, was modified to change some neighborhood placements after hearing that keeping neighborhoods intact was a community priority.

“One thing that I’ve learned through the entire process is there’s a lot of passion involved in this, and it’s because home is where your heart is, and when your heart is in something you elicit a lot passion and feelings and emotion,” Councilmember Amanda Sandoval, who led the city’s redistricting process as committee chair, said Tuesday night.

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Six people from the public spoke at the public hearing, one in support of Map D and five against it.

Darrell Watson spoke in support of Map D at the hearing and encouraged council to vote to approve it.

“The voices of the silent majority often go unheard in these public hearings,” Watson said. “On behalf of them I thank you for your service and your leadership.”

Katie Blakey spoke against Map D, noting her frustration with her neighborhood of Capitol Hill being split in the way it was.

“I’m OK with my neighborhood being split if it serves some sort of greater good,” Blakey said. “The greater good does not include the reelection schemes of incumbents.”

This time around was the first redistricting process that the city used digital mapping softwares for and accepted a variety of interactive maps created by constituents. Several council members also reiterated the additional challenges to the process this time with the coronavirus and delayed census data creating a condensed timeline.

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Many council members specifically thanked Sandoval, Herndon and Councilmember Kendra Black for spearheading the process as the working group last year, as well as Emily Lapel, a legislative policy analyst with the city who was the staff lead on redistricting.

“We knew that this was going to be a very difficult process and one that everyone wasn’t going to be happy with the final map…,” Council President Stacie Gilmore said. “(They all) have been stellar in their coordination, in their leadership and ensuring we had a good process that followed all of the requirements that we had to make sure we checked the boxes on.

The city attorney’s office conducted a legal review of Map D and concluded it is lawful and inline with the city charter. Council was tasked with splitting the city into 11 districts that are compact and contiguous with just over 65,000 constituents in each. In Map D, the largest district is 8.3% larger than the smallest, which falls within the goal of 10%.

Now that a map has been adopted, city staff will create a report outlining the city’s redistricting process and recommendations for future councils going through redistricting.