During their planning phase, Compass Housing Allisance presented information to the Ballard District Council and spoke with other community members about their project, Friedhoff said. “Frankly we weren’t real aware that there was opposition,” he confessed, until design review began earlier this year.

At Monday’s meeting, three dozen people spoke during the public comment period. Although the applause seemed to be split evenly for speakers in favor of the project and against the project, the majority of the speakers that went on public record were for it. Several of the speakers just wanted more answers before making their decision.

The first speaker recalled what Friedhoff had told the group about the Urness House being in close proximity to stores. “A shopping area or a shoplifting area?” he asked, questioning the claim by Compass Housing Authority that they have not seen crime rates go up around other low-income housing properties. One of the final speakers brought a list of 911 calls made to the Compass Housing Authority’s downtown location. He said there were 30 calls last year from assault to suicide. “Protection is my big concern,” he told the group.

Another speaker who is in favor of the project said that people’s negative response to the project is because of prejudices. She referenced previous concerns about property values said, “If all you can think about is the value of your home, you need to reevaluate your values.” Another supporter of the project said, “I thoroughly welcome this house to our community,” a sentiment that was echoed in many of the public comments.

The meeting wrapped up late, causing the Design Review meeting to start late.

During the Design Review meeting, Weinstein A|U presented their proposal to the Design Review Board. The design includes a blue building with orange accents, two garage doors in the back alley on the south side of the building, bare walls on either side except for Virginia Creeper and some windows/balconies in the middle and landscaping out front. It will also have a green roof for residents to enjoy. There will be a guardrail up around the deck so people can’t easily walk to the edge of the building.

A look at the proposed parking garage for Urness House

Public concerns ranged from the number of parking spaces (12 spots), the access down the alley for deliveries and the massing.

In the end, the board gave the Urness House the green light on the design with a few recommendations and approval for four departures (see page 36 of presentation). The board recommends that the design include a seat wall out front, bicycle spots out front and use Urnes style, a Scandinavian textile art, an audience member explained, somewhere in the front lobby. (See entire .pdf design presentation here.)

The first meeting is regarding the environmental review process of the project, the second is a presentation to the Design Review Board. At the Design Review Board meeting, Compass Housing Alliance will present their plans that correspond with priorities set by the Early Design Guidance Board meeting in February.

These meetings are open to the public and the public is encouraged to comment. “Please note that the purpose of this meeting is to hear public comments that relate specifically to the design considerations of the proposed project. The SEPA public meeting, immediately preceding this meeting, will discuss the environmental concerns associated with the proposed development.”

The first meeting will be held June 14th from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Ballard High School Library. The Design Review meeting will be held in the same location on the same date at 8 p.m.

The 80-unit mixed-use building will house chronically homeless men and women. There will be a screening process for those who wish to live there. All residents must pass the tax credit eligibility criteria and be able to live on their own. A person who has been convicted of arson within the last ten years or is a level 3 sex offender will not be allowed into Urness House, according to a release sent by Compass Housing Alliance. “An application will be forwarded for review in the event that the record indicates a conviction of a crime that requires registration as a sex offender, other serious crimes, or a continued pattern of criminal convictions which indicate that the applicant for residency poses a risk to the safety of tenants, staff or neighbors,” the release explains.

The first two floors of the facility will be support services for residents and non-residents. Social workers, addiction counselors, mental health professionals, healthcare providers and employment specialists will work out of these offices. These human services will not be provided by Compass Housing Authority, but by outside organizations.

“The goal of Urness House is to promote the health and housing success of the 80 residents,” states the release, “To achieve this goal, supportive services will be offered on site and Urness House will be staffed 24 hours per day. Our experience with similar projects is that the provision of confidential, on-site support services is’ important for this population’s transition from homelessness to independent and healthier living.”

Compass is proposing 11 parking spots, which in their experience, should be adequate for the human service providers. Car ownership by residents, according to the release, is extremely rare. There are several transit options in the immediate vicinity.

Compass owns a half-dozen permanent housing facilities in King County for people trying to get back on their feet. “Maintaining positive relationships with our neighbors is important for Compass generally and for Urness House,” states the release. To do this, Compass offers to create a community advisory board for Urness House. This board will give neighbors a place to offer suggestions and voice concerns. “The management of Compass and the Urness House staff are committed to being good neighbors to Ballard,” the release states.

The Compass Housing Alliance provides services and housing options for homeless and low-income individuals and families in the Puget Sound area.

This is the same lot where this eyesore was torn down last year. Compass Center hopes to break ground on this new project later this year.

On Monday night at Ballard High School, the Seattle Department of Planning and Development convened a design review board that consisted of architects from the Weinstein AIU architectural firm. The purpose of the public meeting was to discuss design options (.pdf) for newly approved low-income housing in downtown Ballard.

The housing is being developed by the Compass Center, a longtime fixture in downtown Seattle. It will be 57,000 square feet, seven stories high and house 80 residents. The building site is on Northwest 56th Street between 17th and 20th Avenues Northwest.

The Compass Center Ballard will be a new housing facility that will provide housing for homeless and low-income men and women who have issues that range from mental health to drug and alcohol dependency, according to its website.

Rumi Takahashi, the project’s lead architect, said although the project is in its early design stages, it will move forward and the Compass Center has already purchased the land. “They have now recently secured funding for the project, so financially we’re a go,” Takahashi said. She added that the money comes from a combination of public sources: the state, the county and the city.

Although the meeting was supposed to be about design options, local residents seemed more concerned with how the residents of the Compass Center Ballard will interact with the community.

Mike Yamaguchi, the owner of the Landmark Apartments and whose building will border the new Compass Center Ballard, said neither he nor any of the landowners nearby were given any notice about the construction of the housing.

“They tried to slide this entire project right behind our back,” Yamaguchi said.

Yamaguchi added that the lack of adequate parking combined with a substantial increase in people could cause problems.

“When you have that mass of people in a small space, violence occurs—all the time,” Yamaguchi said.

Dave Jarrell, an architect who works across the street from the Compass Center Ballard site, said this project has not been clearly communicated about to Ballard residents. He said they probably knew this would concern some people and instead of being upfront about it, they tried to “slide it by” everyone.

“Right away they should have been upfront with the notice here, that it wasn’t just low- income, that it was a segment of low-income that more people would probably be interested in finding out about,” Jarrell said.

Not everyone at the meeting had concerns about the housing. Melissa Hyatt, chair of the safety and security committee at St. Alphonsus Parish School in Ballard, said the project to build the Compass Center has been very visible and she couldn’t understand how some residents didn’t know about it. “Are you not reading your mail? This has been spoken about at the Ballard Chamber of Commerce, the Ballard District Council; this is a well-known project,” Hyatt said. Hyatt said she represents St. Alphonsus and was present at the meeting to support the project. “I am not at all concerned about this building; I think they’re doing it exactly right,” Hyatt said. “I think this is a great place for it.” When asked if she was concerned about the residents being a threat to anyone, Hyatt said she wasn’t. “Data supports that when you take people off the streets and you put them in a stable home they actually settle down, become much more stable,” Hyatt said. Hyatt said the naysayers of the project would say that they want to help the homeless, but when it comes time to “walk the walk,” they’d rather just “talk the talk.” “I don’t think you’d be able to find any location near them (where) they would support a project like this,” Hyatt said.

The Compass Center Ballard project is currently in the first of three stages prior to the breaking of ground and has no completion date yet.

(Contributor CHRIS MONGILLO is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.)

This is the same lot where this eyesore was torn down last year. Compass Center hopes to break ground on this new project later this year.

Construction is expected to start in October, which isn’t the best time of year to get going on a project, “it’s a function of the financing” Friedhoff tells us.

Once built, the seven-story building will be staffed 24-hours a day by Compass, they will provide on-site case management, and the Reach Team from Evergreen Treatment Services will offer counseling and supportive services, according to the Daily Journal of Commerce (registration required.)

There is an early design guidance meeting scheduled for Feb. 8 at 6:30 p.m. in the Ballard High School library.