How Cleveland Park’s getting its groove back

District neighborhoods with high-NIMBY reputations are beginning to welcome more homes, more transit, more businesses, and more people, with something that could be called gusto. But, first, let’s review where we’ve been.

Nearly 40 years ago, residents of the leafy neighborhoods of Cleveland Park and Woodley Park greeted the opening of new Red line Metro stations by slamming the door, creating historic districts, and downzoning the areas around those Metro stations.

The catalyst for all that restriction was the proposed redevelopment of a 1930s strip mall, allegedly one of the first, that sat directly atop the entrance to the new Cleveland Park Metro. New housing for a range of incomes? Mixed-use in a walkable neighborhood literally next to a transit station? Not in my backyard! Do we want to become…Bethesda? Van Ness? Adams Morgan?

So, the local elites finagled a cap on the amount of fun that could occur in Cleveland and Woodley Park by limiting the amount of street frontage restaurants and bars that could occupy.

For the next 35-some years, as the city around these protected enclaves changed, a tension grew between neighborhood leaders, on the one hand, who fought the mere suggestion of change, residents living along Connecticut Avenue, and new residents, on the other hand, whose idea of city living differed from “suburban oasis” and the “worshiping at the altar of car storage.”

Meanwhile, rents and home prices soared. First-time homebuyers and young professionals moved east to find more affordable city living, even though Connecticut Avenue had, and has, what people wanted, and want: restaurants, good schools, an abundance of transit options, access to parks and recreation. But the rent was too high. By the mid-2000s, DC had left Cleveland Park and Woodley Park behind, and by the 2010s, other neighborhoods’ growth had evidently taken its toll. Losing critically acclaimed restaurants Palena, Dino’s, and Ripple, almost in immediate succession, jolted residents.

In the past, that short span of Connecticut Avenue was one of the few places outsiders would make it a point to visit, and now it was downright boring compared to, say, 14th Street, Shaw, or H Street NE.

Six years ago, Cleveland Park activists, including myself, began to organize local urbanists and advocate for change: more housing in places where living car-free or car-lite is a reality; more opportunities for demographic and economic diversity; more vitality in our commercial corridors, with placemaking and street cafes. We lived in a city, not a suburb, and we meant to change the assumption that our neighborhood was the latter.

We submitted amendments to the Comprehensive Plan to allow for more housing and rethink the contours of the arterial—Connecticut Avenue—that cuts through our neighborhood. Following Woodley Park’s lead, we successfully launched an effort to bring the Department of Small and Local Business’ Main Street program to Cleveland Park. We found people willing to take on leadership roles, serve on local boards, volunteer, and run for ANC. CPSG—Cleveland Park Smart Growth—became a growing movement, and people were excited about it.

We are now winding down a long effort to remake the streetscape in Cleveland Park, and wrapping up a planning process to rezone for more housing and reimagine the rest of Connecticut Ave from the National Zoo to Woodley Park. Change is in the air.

At ANC 3C’s May meeting, this past Monday, commissioners took two major actions that really exemplified just how much stodgy, anti-restaurant,anti-housing Cleveland Park has evolved. In a 7–1 vote, ANC 3C approved a resolution that supports the zoning changes recommended by the Office of Planning and Historic Preservation Office in the commercial areas around the Cleveland Park and Woodley Park Metro stations in the Cleveland Park development guidelines.

ANC 3C endorsed the recommended 75’ building height and 5.0 floor area ratio, and in Woodley Park the 75’ building height and 5.5 floor area ratio recommendation for the east side of Connecticut Avenue, and a 90’ building height and 6.0 FAR for the west side.

In addition, the ANC recommended the development guidelines go further in the following areas:

• Clearly spell out the desire for the District to encourage and utilize subsidies and land purchase tools to bring deeper affordability and family-sized units to projects in the area;
• Remove parking mandates in a effort to lower housing costs;
• Highlight lots where building can happen more quickly such as parking lots and the gas station
• Be more aggressive in recommending more housing at the Park & Shop site.
• Ending the restaurant cap in both neighborhoods.

In a separate action, ANC 3C voted 7–1 to recommend that the “service lane” in Cleveland Park be kept open to pedestrians, streateries, and other placemaking interventions—and closed permanently to drivers. This is a fight that has been going on for more than 10 years. During the pandemic, the District “piloted” the closure of the service lane to traffic, and people enjoyed it, so much so that Nanny O’Briens Pub submitted a petition with nearly 1,000 signatories urging for a permanent pedestrian space.

The next hurdle for CPSG, and those who agree with us, is to win the backing for the more aggressive asks of the Office of Planning outlined above, as well as win conceptual support from the Historic Preservation Review Board to accept the new height and density while making it architecturally compatible with the historic districts.

If you live in the District, particularly in Ward 3, I encourage you to support ANC 3C’s recommendation by submitting feedback in support of the design guidelines to the Office of Planning’s portal feedback portal by Fri., May 26, by the end of the day. Even though the deadline to submit comments to the Historic Preservation Review Board, which meets this Thursday, has already passed, you can read CPSG’s comments here, and send an email anyway to historic.preservation@dc.gov. HPRB needs to hear public support for balancing its historic-preservation mission with the District’s other policy goals, including building more housing.