The Department of Planning and Development will hold two meetings tonight to discuss the environmental impact and design aspects of Urness House, the proposed 80-unit mixed-use building for chronically homeless men and women at 1753 NW 56th St.
A look at the proposed Urness House.
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. A look at tonight’s presentation to the Design Review Board can be found here (.pdf).
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.”
Both meetings will be held tonight at the Ballard High School Library. The environmental meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. with the design review meeting at 8.
![](https://www.myballard.com/wp-content/uploads/2024-My-Ballard-Tile-Ad-Troop-100.png")
Oh great, another box with bums upstairs and tanning salon downstairs.
The Hobo Hotel is absolutely the worst thing to ever come to Ballard! It’ll be full of 80 drug addicts, crazies and sex offenders, from the Compass website. Great individual’s to expose a community full of children and elderly too. Go Away!
No Grubby, the whole building is for the homeless, the first two floors will be used for services for them. I’d take tanning salons any day over this thing.
Nice digs. Where do I sign up for free housing and food? I’m tired of working and paying taxes. Time to drug and booze up on the backs of those working morons paying taxes.
MAN THAT IS UGLY. It screams, LOW INCOME INSTITUTIONAL.
Can’t some architect firm do a pro bono to improve?
I think this will be a great thing for our community. As far as the look and feel of the building, it will fit right in with Canal Station, Leva and Hjarta.
Oh Really Amy??? Bringing in more drug addicts, crazies, and registered convicted sex offenders is a great thing for our community??? I doubt you’ll share that same feeling if you or someone you know becomes a victim to one of these individuals. Ballard is not the place for this type of center.
Yeah, better to let people continue sleeping on the streets, eh?
Chalk one up for affordable housing advocates. And make one demerit for the ignorant haters.
“Yeah, better to let people continue sleeping on the streets, eh?”
How much you wanna bet there will still be bucket loads of bums in Ballard after this Bum-motel goes up?
At least they’ll give you another windmill to chase.
From what I’ve read, they will NOT be housing people who are sex offenders OR convicted of arson (this is the norm for most transitional housing, btw). Also, it is my understanding that this is transitional housing, for people who are transitioning from the streets to permanent housing/jobs, etc. These are people, in other words, that want to make it OUT of their current lifestyles and into the lifestyle of a regular, tax paying citizen. These digs don’t come to them for free, and often require a lot of work from the individual for them to maintain residence, including (as applicable) mental health treatment adherence, drug abuse treatment adherence (including drug/alcohol abstinence), curfew hours, visitation limits, and regular check-ins with a case manager (which it appears they will have access on-site.) Failure to meet the requirements of the housing will often end with them losing their housing option.
People who criticize this center really have no idea what they’re talking about. They THINK they do, but they don’t. Before you make a criticism about these centers, spend ONE MONTH volunteering, without judgment and an open mind, for a food bank or a shelter downtown. Instead of seeing these people as less than animals, see them as human. This isn’t to say there aren’t assholes among them, but the same goes for the more affluent. If you want people to not be “bums in the street” you need to realize that they need opportunities to transition. NIMBY attitudes keep those who want to get out off of the streets from having opportunities to make the first steps.
Everyone has to start somewhere.
” NIMBY attitudes ”
Ballard already has several shelters, a food bank, DHS as well as a growing vagrant population who will NOT be served by this facility. What we don’t want is another shelter. The residents may well be fine, it’s the hanger-ons, the drop-outs, the dealers hoping to get a resident back in the trade, all buzzing around this place like flies around a cow patty.
Why not in Laurelhurst where several Compass directors live?
Oh, that’s right…
Jane
Read it for yourself on the Compass Housing Alliance website!
trying to clear up some facts…
“Nyer Urness House will be an 80-unit mixed-use building which will provide permanent, supportive housing and services for formerly homeless individuals.”
“This is not a shelter; it is an apartment building.”
“Compass will conduct a criminal history check of all prospective tenants and will not house in this project those designated as most likely to re-offend (Level 3).”
“designed by Weinstein AU. Weinstein has extensive experience designing buildings that enhance the community.”
As a home owner in a neighborhood to Ballard’s south, I would like to thank Ballard for being so accomodating of bums, alchoholics and druggies. Every bum, druggie and drunk housed in Ballard is one less bum, druggie and drunk I have to worry about running across.
“designed by Weinstein AU. Weinstein has extensive experience designing buildings that enhance the community.”
Really NOT my favorite Weinstein/AU building. What is it about designers (and I speak as one who IS an architect) that makes them want to put so many GRAY buildings in Seattle where it is already gray for at least 9 months of the year???
good news!
I like it!
Some of you obviously never get Downtown , or in Belltown, or Pioneer Squre, or Occidental Park ,or Capitol Hill, or or or.
You’d crap yer pants if you dealt with the approximately 5000+ homeless in Seattle. Chcken ninneys whining about less than 20 current drunks in Ballard, screaming & whining about 80 more. Oooooohhhh! A HUNDRED. WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!! AHHHH!!!
Chicken Ninnies!
I attended the meetings last night and those who signed up to speak supported the facility by more than a margin of 2:1. What I found most interesting were the number of people who have lived and/or worked near such transitional housing facilities run by Compass Center and others and said that they had not experienced any problems with crime, trash, loitering or depressed home values. To the contrary, the tenants were respectful and tremendously grateful for the opportunity to be in a stable housing situation. One woman who periodically visits such transitional housing facilities as part of her daily work spoke of having difficulty finding the last two buildings she had to visit because they blended in so well and looked like any other neighborhood apartment building.
The building will have a concierge at the front desk to control ingress/egress, security cameras around the building, and as a result, more “eyes on the ground.”
Also interesting were those who attended and said that the fears expressed here were expressed in all of the other communities before transitional housing moved in, but once the facilities were up and running, opposition died down completely once area residents and businesses saw how successful these programs can be.
There seems to be a misconception that the building will be little more than a place for the area’s regular drunks to congregate, live and hang out – a “hobo hotel” as portrayed by certain posters. Wrong. This facility will screen its tenants, some of whom are recovering addicts and alcoholics, each of whom will have case managers, mental health and other medical services and other support mechanisms to help these people succeed and move on. Moreover, these services will be available to the community at large – services not currently being provided.
The only way to end homelessness is to provide housing. For those on the road to recovery, the single most important factor that will determine the success of their recovery is stability – having a stable housing situation will be invaluable.
“these services will be available to the community at large”
So outside drunks, dopers and bums will be coming to this place for ‘help’ ? Oh goody.
“these services will be available to the community at large”
So it will be a hobotel……anyone who wants to stop by for some ‘services’ (ie.methadone) and hang out will be welcome.
The new welcome sign going up over the Ballard Bridge… “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”