By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

DESC is applying for its 5444 Delridge Way SW building permit next month, executive director Bill Hobson told last night’s meeting of the project’s Advisory Committee.

That was a side note to a discussion with the team from SMR Architects, returning to West Seattle to discuss the 66-unit Delridge Supportive Housing project for the first time since the second and final Southwest Design Review Board meeting two months ago.

Instead of a presentation followed by Q/A, the presentation was punctuated by the half-dozen community members in attendance engaging the architects in conversation about various features of the building and site.

Much of the discussion focused on its back side (lower left view in image atop this story), as had been the case during the second Design Review Board meeting. The architects showed a tweaked version of the four-story building’s view from the alley, including yellow paint for much of the first two floors, and red on the set-back top two stories. Asked if they’d done enough to answer the DRB’s concern that the building’s back facade seemed “listless,” the architects thought they had, with touches including varied types/sizes of panels around the windows, as well as new landscaping details.

Those details updated since the Design Review meetings included trees and shrubbery along the rear of the building, as something of a “green screen” for neighbors (alley is at top of image over this line). Trees will include Japanese snowbell – expected to max out around 35 feet in height – and magnolia – projected to 24 feet. There’ll also be a “densified” cluster of “large shrubs.”

The courtyard on the southwest side of the building, anchored by the large cedar tree that DESC is under city orders to preserve, will include a raingarden to receive storm drainage from the roof. Along the street, the architects say they’re “still proposing salvaging existing street trees,” and the parking-strip area that is now “lawn” will be replaced with “simple ground cover.”

They said they’re still working on the lighting plan for the front and south side, where a “lantern” scheme had been envisioned – exterior lighting toward the top of the building might be a maintenance challenge, they noticed. One DESC facility, Canaday House, has “inset spotlights that highlight certain trees,” but the architect team isn’t so sure that would work for the large cedar that will take up much of the courtyard – “putting lights up the tree might be weird,” it was observed.

That big tree, by the way, will have to undergo some preparatory work before construction starts, it was explained – limbs that are too low to the ground will have to be removed for example. “What if the tree is irreparably harmed” during construction? asked advisory committee member Vonetta Mangaoang. There’s an “extensive protection plan,” replied the team, with fencing, mulch, and plywood. Hobson said they were committed to the plan and quipped that he would not want to see DESC “sent off to eco-concentration camp for destroying an exceptional tree.”

Asked if the community could use the courtyard, Hobson mentioned a DESC project where people from a nearby seniors’ community do come over and interact. However, there could be security issues – a “landscaped fence” is currently planned along the courtyard.

The discussion turned to how the building’s deliveries would be made, and how many there would be. DESC’s committee representative Nicole Macri said they would expect Costco deliveries and probably a meal provider – Hobson said they expect to contract with Fare Start – maybe also occasional office-supplies deliveries, and of course, the commercial tenant’s deliveries too.

Much of that was expected to happen in an area set aside on the northeast side of the building, but a parking pad remains in the plan on the southeast side (at the upper right of image above this paragraph), and that drew some neighborhood concern from residents who say it is currently used often for drug activity, and if it is a little-used parking pad, that might just continue to facilitate such use. As for whether that parking pad could be removed from the plan, the project team will discuss that with city planners, since it was an element favored by the Design Review Board, to avoid having all dropoffs/deliveries made at one spot behind the building.

That’s where Hobson mentioned that, although DESC had said at the last minute that it expected to apply for the building permit in August, it instead will be doing that next month – no precise date yet, could be early June, could be late – and therefore there’s “urgency (for) getting clarity” on final design tweaks, like this would be.

That discussion segued into the condition of the alley, which DESC will be improving as a requirement of the project, including paving and drainage, though the extent of that work hasn’t been decided yet, and the existing drainage is apparently in imperfect shape – the project team explained that they tried to use a special camera to investigate it, and “the first try didn’t go well,” so they’re planning to bring in a different type of camera.

One more issue: How will it be clear to pedestrians and others that the commercial space on the northwest side of the building is exactly that, and not just part of the housing complex? it was asked. Reply: Windows, different pavers, and possibly signage, though that would have to be discussed with the tenant, likely to be the Delridge Produce Cooperative per ongoing discussions. Concern was expressed regarding the notion that the windows would be expected to convey the business atmosphere – what if they were blocked by what’s in the business? DESC’s Hobson said that as landlords, they would closely monitor what was placed or displayed along the facade, and have done so at other buildings they own/manage.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE COMMITTEE: Members will tour DESC properties on June 4th – Hobson said he believes they’ll go to the two that North Delridge community members visited last September, Rainier House in Columbia City and Canaday House in Cascade (we covered that tour – here’s the story). Then the next public meeting at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center is scheduled for 6:30 pm June 12th, including a debriefing on the tour.

Finding people to help with the many tasks of preparing for a retail operation was a big topic. Half a dozen community members had shown up by about midway through the meeting, and several signed up for volunteer positions. Outreach and website work is important right now, according to the DPC board, as well as community fundraisers, and representing DPC at events such as this Saturday’s Gathering of Neighbors.

Board members, meantime, are meeting with a Highline Community College instructor to work on a business plan and feasibility study, both brought up by the Delridge Supportive Housing Advisory Committee at its meeting last Thursday. Board members reviewed the document they had received with “community recommendations for tenant selection,” listing criteria including responsiveness and sensitivity to a variety of neighborhood factors, hiring from within the neighborhood, pricing products “based on thorough review of actual income levels of residents.”

Still plenty of time and ways to get involved with the DPC; their regular meeting date will be the third Monday of the month, Delridge Library (Delridge/Brandon), 6:30 pm.

We plan for a large part of our produce purchases to come from the Delridge community itself, and so we have a great need to reach out to neighbors to find and recruit members and growers. If we connect gardeners to the food hub that we are growing, we can all eat healthy, local food without paying the high prices that we are all used to seeing for organic produce at the grocery store.

If you can help with that – or in some other way – or just want to know more, the DPC hopes to see you at 6:30 pm Monday, Delridge Library (Delridge/Brandon).

BUSINESS, PRESENT: A business association is being organized for the main retail area in North Delridge, known in the Neighborhood Plan as the “Brandon Node” (since it’s centered around Delridge/Brandon). It’s an outgrowth of the “visioning” meeting held for the area in February, with businesses, residents, and City Councilmembers participating (read about it on the NDNC site).

BUSINESS, FUTURE: Much of the meeting focused on the business that is considered the frontrunner for the commercial space that DESC has promised to build on the northwest side of the ground level of its 66-apartment Delridge Supportive Housing building (5444 Delridge Way SW). That’s the Delridge Produce Cooperative, which has tested various types of operations over the past few years such as a buyers’ club and mobile market. DESC has said it would like to settle on its business tenant sooner rather than later, to incorporate the space’s needs into the planning process, and the issue now is community support for the “greengrocer”-type operation DPC envisions.

From the Delridge Alliance, working with the Community Advisory Committee for the DESC project, Vonetta Mangaoang suggested it might be good for the DPC to have benchmarks and dates set for coming up with capitalization, pricing, product lists, etc. Her concern is to help position the DPC for success, because it wouldn’t be in anyone’s best interest for the operation to fail, leaving that space empty. But, the question kept arising, is it up to the NDNC/area residents to do anything beyond endorse the idea of a market – which has long ranked high on area wish lists – and leave it up to DESC/DPC/whomever to take it from there? DPC board member Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley was at the NDNC meeting and said it is important for them to know where they stand with the neighborhood, and she invited the public to the cooperative’s next public meeting next Monday (here’s the DPC calendar). In the meantime, the DESC project’s Advisory Committee has its next meeting this week, 6:30 pm Thursday at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center.

PARKS AND GREEN SPACES LEVY OPPORTUNITY FUND: The city is embarking on the second round of seeking applications for a share of the money available for community-generated projects. As mentioned here last month, workshops are coming up to help would-be applicants put together proposal letters and then applications (here’s the schedule). Community discussion is expected shortly, to elicit potential proposals for discussion; one of the possibilities mentioned last night included enhancements in the Delridge Skatepark area of the Delridge Community Center complex.

NORTH DELRIDGE SPRING CLEAN: This Saturday morning, 10 am-noon (here’s the reminder we published last weekend).

The North Delridge Neighborhood Council meets on second Mondays, 6:30 pm, Delridge Library, with lots of information online at ndnc.org.

A wide-ranging agenda Tuesday night for the third meeting of the Advisory Committee formed as a means of addressing community concerns regarding DESC‘s planned Delridge Supportive Housing project. (Our coverage of the first meeting is here, the second meeting here.) Above, our unedited video of the entire 2-hour meeting (makes better audio than video – we apologize for awkward angles on a few public commenters because of where they stood to speak in relation to where our photographer was positioned).

Toplines, ahead:

Two central agenda items were related to business in the area – both the ideas that emerged from the recent Brandon Node Visioning Open House (an overview was presented by North Delridge Neighborhood Council co-chair Parie Hines, who also talked about a recently unveiled study suggesting that Delridge couldn’t support a supermarket – see its toplines here) and the proposal for the Delridge Produce Cooperative to run the commercial space that DESC plans for the ground floor of its building.

DPC board members Galena White and Ranette Iding explained that it would be a store, not a “buyers’ club,” though they expect to sell memberships for those who want to support the co-op that way, and have a say in its operation. They hoped the space would include a kitchen demonstration area as well as retail space, and that some of their produce would come from small local growers. More discussion is planned before a final decision is made on supporting the plan for DPC and DESC to work together. (To find out more about DPC, check out the slide presentation on its website.)

There also was more discussion about issues of community concern that should be on the committee’s radar. They included:

*Neighborhood safety, including concerns about drug activity since addicts are expected to be among the tenants
*DESC tenant screening and tenant agreement
*Traffic safety
*What everyday life is like in a DESC supportive-housing building – perhaps hear from counselors
*What will it be like for the community when the building is open?
*Synching DESC’s project timeline with the advisory committee’s work/priorities

The committee’s next meeting will tackle community issues as well as the DPC plan, 6:30 pm April 12th, at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center (site of all its meetings so far).

Not long after DESC went public last June with news of its proposal to build the project to house formerly homeless people, many living with challenges such as mental illness and/or substance abuse, the question was asked: Will sex offenders be among the residents? As we reported on June 27th, DESC executive director Bill Hobson said they would not be allowed in the building’s population “if that’s what the neighborhood wants.” The request had not been formally made by any group representing the population, however, and the issue’s status came up in a mail-group discussion over the past week. That discussion concluded with Vonetta Mangaoang of the Delridge Alliance, a member of the project’s Advisory Committee, reporting late today:

Just this morning, Bill Hobson, in response to my request to have the issue of sex offender exclusion placed on tomorrow’s neighborhood advisory committee agenda, resolved the issue by simply stating that DESC will exclude sex offenders from their Delridge supportive housing facility. His quick and decisive action hopefully resolves neighbors’ concerns.

Thank you to each of you who pointed out the importance of this issue. I encourage neighbors to continue to actively communicate with your neighborhood representatives on DESC’s community advisory committee (e-mail alliance@ndnc.org).

That committee meets again tomorrow night, 6:30 pm at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center; the agenda is here.

(Delridge streetfront view, from project renderings shown to Design Review Board)
Delridge Community Forum, one of the groups that has been closely tracking DESC’s 66-unit Delridge Supportive Housing project, reports that the state Housing Finance Commission approved its request for Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (explained here). (We have messages out to WSHFC’s media liaison.) That follows approvals for city, county, and state funding. Land-use and construction permits are still pending with the city; DESC hopes to start construction by year’s end. The project’s Community Advisory Committee, meantime, meets next Tuesday (March 27), 6:30 pm, at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center (see the agenda here).

(A design rendering shown at the March 8th SW Design Review Board meeting)
Tomorrow’s the day the Washington State Housing Finance Commission will look at the tax-credit financing proposed to comprise most of the money for DESC‘s 66-unit Delridge Supportive Housing project. Full details are on the Delridge Community Forum website, but to summarize it: This funding would allow private investment in the project, with the private investor(s) getting Low-Income Housing Tax Credits in exchange. The project (5444 Delridge Way SW) already has been approved for public funding from the city, county, and state. The Thursday meeting, which includes a public-comment period (other ways to comment are explained on the DCF site), is at 1 pm, downtown at 1000 Second Avenue (28th floor).

In advance of the meeting, the anonymous “Concerned Delridge Neighbor” who has been diving into some of the issues the project has raised – such as, is Delridge already bearing more than its share of very-low-income housing? – published an open letter to the WSHFC, with data about the area’s poverty. (If you have already been following this via the North Delridge mailing list, where questions were raised about the data’s accuracy/source, note that “Concerned Delridge Neighbor” has published a postscript citing the source.)

ADDED: The 20th SW recap:

The night began with early design guidance for 9051 20th SW (here’s the “packet”). No controversy here. No one in the audience except your editor here, until a family with young children arrived midway through the architect’s presentation; when the public comment section of the presentation arrived, they explained that they live across the street, to the south, and wanted to know about possible shading. The project team said that wouldn’t happen).

This project is proposed as two 3-story apartment buildings, to be built in two phases, on two lots in the South Delridge area. There would be 20 one- and two-bedroom “flats” in the first phase, 4 live-work units and 19 flats in the second phase. The project team requested one “departure,” an exemption from alley development, because they say the alley is steep and virtually unusable. They’re expecting to have 36 spaces for the 43 units, ultimately. The name of the project, Vesseliye, said the architect, is a Slavic word meaning “joy.” The family that lives nearby said they’re “looking forward to having the abandoned houses ripped out and something nice going in.”

In their deliberations, board members said it was too bad the project couldn’t take advantage of additional height; the city planner assigned to the project explained it was a result of current city rules. They also debated the ceiling height in relation to the project’s longevity, and the driveway that is envisioned inbetween the two buildings, given that the developers consider the alley not viable for their project.

This project has now cleared Early Design Guidance, but will have to return for at least one more Design Review Board meeting, to gain a recommendation for final design approval. The date for that is not yet set.

Tonight (8 pm at the Senior Center of West Seattle), the Southwest Design Review Board takes its second, and possibly final, look at DESC’s Delridge Supportive Housing Project, a proposed 66-unit housing complex for homeless people living with challenges such as mental illness and/or substance abuse.

It’s the second community meeting this week related to the project. On Tuesday night, the project’s Advisory Committee met for the second time. During that meeting, DESC distributed a printed list of its answers to community questions about the project, which have since been published online (see them here).

One section of note, since the topic has come up in multiple discussions:

DESC runs a criminal background check on all potential tenants prior to offering an apartment, but they are not prohibited from being housed due to a criminal background, including sex offenses. We do screen out those whose criminal histories indicate that they would be a threat to vulnerable people. Even though sex offenses are not prevalent among DESC’s target population, contrary public perception is so strong that DESC has informed Delridge neighbors that we will exclude sex offenders from living at our Delridge location if such a request is made to DESC by the organized neighborhood group. So far, that request has not been made.

The FAQ wasn’t discussed during the meeting, but many other topics were. Read on:

The committee’s first meeting 2 weeks ago (WSB coverage here, including video) was primarily to listen to public concerns. With this one, it was scheduled to start getting down to business. Its membership is drawn from the community as well as from DESC, whose executive director Bill Hobson co-chairs it along with Pete Spalding, a longtime community advocate. They were both on hand for the meeting, along with Nicole Macri of DESC, Vonetta Mangaoang of the North Delridge Neighborhood Council, and Jane Appling from Seattle Public Library. (Full committee membership can be seen here.)

Six community members were in attendance, and there was a third group of people present – government representatives: Rick Hooper, city Office of Housing director; Brian Hawksford from City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen‘s office; Shannon Braddock from County Councilmember Joe McDermott’s office, and Cheryl Markham from the county. Rasmussen and McDermott themselves have attended meetings on the project at different points along the way and committed to facilitate information; their staffers reiterated that commitment during this meeting.

The meeting began with community concerns/comments:

First was Tanya Baer of Delridge Community Forum, a volunteer group that has been researching and publishing information about the project (see the DCF website here) and has held two of three community meetings funded by a small city grant. Her concerns included not receiving enough information about how the Advisory Committee’s expectations, process, and schedule; she pointed out that the Tuesday night meeting “was announced fairly late to the community, on Sunday, and neighbors need significant time to plan, so that if they want to participate in the process, they should be able to.” 6 pm was too early for a start time, she said. And she wanted to know more about whether agendas would be released in advance, minutes would be released afterward, and whether the committee will have a secretary position.

Next, Karrie Kohlhaas, a neighborhood resident. She had sharper questions about the committee’s purpose and makeup. “This advisory committee was set up to address the lack of relationship DESC had with the community – I’m concerned that I don’t know who set the agenda, (but) now we’re being told that we can only comment on the agenda … It’s really important that actual neighbors who live in North Delridge participate in the setting of the agenda.” With that, she questioned how Hobson and Spalding had come to be co-chairs, with Hobson being from the organization “neighbors are advising,” and Spalding not living in North Delridge proper (he lives in Pigeon Point, uphill to the east). “The more I see how the committee was stacked, it’s not representative of community input, and there are other neighbors who feel that way … I’m putting myself out on the line to say that. It’s nothing personal but it needs to be said; it’s like a circular insular conversation that excludes neighbors.”

Next speaker, whose name we didn’t get, was concerned about oversight and accountability, particularly if circumstances changed: “My biggest concern … what guarantee that (DESC will) maintain and run the services for clientele correctly and appropriately for the community, what contract with the neighborhood or community is there. I’m talking about a written contract of some sort.” She expressed concern about what would happen if DESC lost its funding, “what happens to that facility, does it become undermanned, are you unable to maintain … the kind of services that are inherent in dealing with the particular population you’re putting in there?”

Then, John Nuler, identifying himself as a supporter of the project and saying he believes “it has been horribly misrepresented in the community at large.” He said he considers it to be caught in an “endless process of what the speakers before me talked about, which is not about DESC, which is not about the project at hand, which is not about … the building, but is about the respect they feel they haven’t been given … the whole thing is just an example of bloated Seattle process.” He suggested DESC wasn’t getting enough respect in that process: “They have a long established role in the communities; they haven’t failed. You can’t hold the (Delridge) Library down the street to the same (expectations); they have crime in the bathrooms … do we sue the city (about that)? It is not a wholly public project; it is supported in a public way, (so) a lot of people say it deserves the same scrutiny … (but) a lot of modifications already made to the process and the plan are detrimental to it. (The project is) to help people on the street who are at risk of getting raped, murdered, and tortured, and that’s why I’m here.” He also said the “endless process” was driving its cost up, and suggested elected officials’ involvement wasn’t helping matters. “DESC has a dozen places around the city, it’s always fought like this, the neighbors bring up all the same excuses, it degenerates into a political thing … we should realize these things do not have a terrible effect on our neighborhoods … Let everybody do the job they are well qualified to do.”

After him, Mike Dady: “Going forward in the context of the project, I just really want to emphasize for people who do live here, (that) it’s in our back yard and to make it work, means the people here in attendance have a lot of feelings. We have (in the neighborhood) a lot of people who don’t feel comfortable coming to meetings; they would feel completely foreign in this room, but they come to me … now that this project is happening, it is in everybody’s interest, especially DESC’s, to make it work, because if it doesn’t work for you, it’s not going to work for us.” He said he also is concerned about the committee makeup, because “the people who are in touch on the street (is) who we need involved at this table. It’s in everybody’s interest that this gets really vetted, or really laid out clearly, or who knows how this thing is going to go.”

Much discussion of logistics ensued, including the concerns brought up by some of the public commenters, such as the start time, and even what size of room might be necessary. Hobson said there’s no money “in the development budget” for this process, so if there’s not a lot of community members showing up, he reserves the right to book a smaller room, for example.

Then came the topic of how community concerns would be handled. Hobson suggested that neighborhood concerns should be routed through neighborhood representatives on the Advisory Committee. He said it had been difficult “having to respond to so many people in so many groups … that’s a lot for a nonprofit group to take on, to stay informed and abreast of the issues. It’s going to be a lot more manageable if we channel it through the Advisory Committee.”

That notion received some audience pushback, noting that previously establshed groups such as the Delridge Community Forum and the North Delridge Neighborhood Council already had been working extensively on research and dealing with community concerns, so suddenly abdicating involvement might not make sense, especially since some community members may be familiar with the other groups but not plugged into this potential new process. There did not seem to be a resolution.

Hobson then brought up some project updates, including a desire to settle quickly on a commercial tenant for that part of the Delridge Supportive Housing building. He said that DESC might ultimately wind up investing about half a million dollars in the development of the commercial space in the project, which it was not required to include, and which has to be developed with its own money since public financing is not available for that purpose, but, he said, given the stage the project’s in, they need to start working with its architect. It’s been talking with the Delridge Produce Cooperative (as mentioned in the FAQ).

From the audience, Kohlhaas said she had understood “that neighbors would have input on who the commercial tenant would be.”

Eventually, the perception of a fast-track to Delridge Produce Cooperative approval seemed to be abandoned, and Hobson said he would arrange for them to make a presentation at an upcoming committee meeting, preferably the next one, in late March.

One last topic – since this is not the first project of its kind in Seattle, nor will it be the last, shouldn’t there be a sort of generic FAQ with which neighborhoods are presented when they are first told one is on the way? If so, who would create it? . DESC’s Hobson thought it might be up to the Department of Neighborhoods. Housing’s Hooper disagreed. Delridge Community Forum’s Baer said, “Even if (the information provided was) ‘if you want to know more, here’s who to contact’ … THAT learning curve was tremendous.” She pointed out that despite the “learning curve,” neighbors who did extensive research uncovered a bonafide issue, the one that resulted in the project’s capacity being reduced from 75 units to 66. “Neighbors take the time to be involved,” she noted. “It affects our neighborhood.” Aaron Jennings, whose property is adjacent to the development site, put it bluntly, addressing DESC and the government reps, “This (information-gathering) isn’t what neighbors do for a living – it’s what you guys do for a living. It is inherently unfair that (the process) is inherently stacked toward those who do it for a living.”

WHAT’S NEXT: The committee is still working out its meeting schedule and dates. As noted in the new FAQ from DESC, the project is still aiming to start the year-long construction process by the end of this year. One week from tonight (6:30 pm March 15th), the city will hold another meeting – this time to hear public comments about the “environmental review” process for the project – explained in this notice published today.

It’s been eight months since first word that the Downtown Emergency Service Center planned to build a “supportive housing” project at 5444 Delridge Way – downsized slightly to 66 units, each one to become home to a formerly homeless person living with mental illness and possibly substance abuse. Tuesday night, a new advisory committee met for the first time, expressly to listen to whatever community members wanted to say about the project, even if they had said it somewhere before.

The results are in our video clip, unedited, recording all 13 speakers, who comprised almost half the crowd. (There would have been more, suggested one speaker, if the community had any reason to trust DESC would truly listen and act on the concerns voiced.) They voiced concerns and criticisms, some with fury, some with disappointment, some with skepticism, some with scorn. While understanding the need for the work DESC does, this just isn’t the right site, many said – in one speaker’s words, putting an at-risk community on top of an at-risk community.

DESC director Bill Hobson is co-chair of the new committee, along with longtime community activist/advocate Pete Spalding of Pigeon Point. But this hearing wasn’t for back-and-forth discussion, or even for DESC to respond to concerns – it was meant to be 100 percent for anyone who wanted to speak, to do so.

Meantime, the project still has hurdles to clear – as reported here earlier this week, the Washington State Housing Finance Commission has a public hearing downtown at 1 pm Thursday for projects seeking Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, including this one; on March 8th, it’s the second Design Review Board hearing for the project. Other key dates and input opportunities are detailed here.