Better Know a Single-Member District: 3C03

“The fightin’ 3C03”

3C03 is one of three SMDs in the neighborhood of Woodley Park. Woodley combines some large residential buildings along Connecticut with single-family homes farther away, a small but lively retail strip, and perhaps the greatest concentration of large institutional land uses in any neighborhood its size. There are two very large hotels, the Omni Shoreham and the Marriott Wardman Park; the Marriott is the largest hotel in DC and host to many large conventions. Woodley has several schools, including the Oyster Bilingual charter school, the Maret private school, and the Aidan Montessori School. It has a Metro station. And then there’s the elephant, or should I say panda, in the room: the National Zoo.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Woodley is a desirable neighborhood, especially for young parents such as Anne-Marie Bairstow, one of two candidates running for the open 3C03 seat. Bairstow’s oldest child attends Oyster, and before that was enrolled at Aidan. That brought Bairstow into some of the neighborhood’s recent development battles, as Aidan sought to increase its enrollment amidst neighborhood concerns over traffic and other imapacts. Bairstow said that “things were done wrong on both sides” in that fight, and knowing what she knows now, would have “had everyone sit down … and talk through the process early on.” She feels that Oyster doesn’t know how to be effectively involved in the Woodley community, and hopes to repair and strengthen that relationship if elected to the ANC. Building bridges in the neighborhood is a refrain all ANC candidates bring up frequently, regardless of their positions on specific issues; Jenelle Dennis, Bairstow’s opponent in the race, also talked extensively about working together to solve problems like these.

Dennis, who does not have children, lives on Connecticut Avenue near the neighborhood’s northern edge. She grew up in various neighborhoods of upper Northwest Washington before her family moved to Newton, Massachusetts, but she always wanted to come back here. She attended the School of Foreign Service in Georgetown, returned to Boston for law school, and then finally settled in DC. Dennis now works as a real estate attorney in Bethesda. (And she takes Metro almost every day.)

Bairstow was drawn to DC during college, when she came during her summers to work on national politics but gradually found herself gravitating to local issues instead, first to social work, where she worked with the homeless, and then to urban planning, in which she has a masters from UVA. She worked for the Downtown BID and then most recently was Director of the Adams Morgan Partnership (their BID).

Bairstow also ran Mary Cheh’s primary campaign for DC Council. In 2004, a group of Ward 3 residents including Bairstow met with each candidate running for the open Council seat. They were so impressed with Cheh that they decided to throw their full support behind her, and even ran the campaign. As we all know, they succeeded, giving Cheh a huge victory in the primary despite a very crowded field.

As an urban planner and a past board member of WABA, Bairstow believes in urban livability as we do on GGW. She feels that “the suburban way of living is wrong and urban way of living is right,” adding that “I feel somewhat self-congratulatory that I made the decision to live in the city” and stay to raise her children. She believes that density is appropriate around Metro stations, including Woodley’s.

ANC 3C is the epicenter of development debates today: not so much in Woodley Park, though it’s had its share of big fights such as when the Marriott wanted to add a residential tower on their property (the project is now stalled due to the economy), but because of the Giant, which sits at the western edge of 3C. To put it simply, Bairstow favors the Giant, and Dennis, while more cautionary in her statements, does not support the project right now.

In Bairstow’s opinion, ANC 3C has been too “anti-development”. She emphasizes that she doesn’t favor just any development regardless of the merits, but would “definitely like to see a new Giant on Wisconsin”. Dennis, on the other hand, agrees that “the area has lost a little bit of its vibrancy” and would like to see something there, but wants to be more cautious given neighborhood concerns about traffic and parking. She’d like to wait for a DDOT study about the transportation impacts, perhaps see some improved public transportation or a shuttle provided by the Giant, and isn’t sure the neighborhood can support 150 residences with their associated car trips.

Both candidates also spoke extensively about the Zoo, which draws huge crowds and lots of cars trying to park. Dennis suggests a combination of increased Zoo parking, better awareness of public transportation options, or stricter enforcement of residential parking permits. She’s skeptical of performance parking as a tool to deal with this issue.

Bairstow has one specific idea for parking, which GGW strongly endorses: smaller residential parking permit (RPP) zones. Between the Zoo and the Metro station, Woodley sees large numbers of drivers from more remote parts of Ward 3 park on its streets, benefiting from the RPP system even though they don’t live in the neighborhood. Bairstow would reform this system to make Woodley RPP street restrictions apply to Woodley or ANC 3C residents, rather than to the entire Ward. Dennis agreed that some neighbors favor that idea, though she declined to take a clear position.

Pedestrian safety on Connecticut Avenue is a big issue in every neighborhood along the street, including Woodley. Dennis would “like better signs, better traffic signals, and better police enforcement” to improve the avenue. Bairstow largely agrees, specifically suggesting retiming the lights near the Metro station to make crossing easier for pedestrians, and repainting crosswalks.

As a sad addendum to my interviews, the evening after I interviewed Jenelle Dennis, she was hit by a car on Wisconsin Avenue. Dennis wrote to me, “The driver said she ‘didn’t see me’ despite the fact that I was wearing a red dress and have blond hair. Nothing serious, just minor scrapes and bruises. But, this just underscored and reemphasized the importance of pedestrian safety issues on Connecticut and Wisconsin.” Dennis suggested “better crosswalk lighting or red/green arrows for left-hand turns” off major streets like Wisconsin and Connecticut. I hope I speak for the entire GGW community in hoping Jenelle really isn’t hurt and that we can indeed improve pedestrian safety in the area.