1. Last week, the news hit that Touchstone, the developers that mayor Ed Murray had asked to take on the stalled project across the street from city hall, couldn’t make it happen. (It’s curious to me that in an unprecedented boom time of cranes and maxed out population, investors wouldn’t be lining up to build in the center of downtown, but apparently there were no takers.)

I put out an SOS to DIY city planners asking them to seize the opportunity themselves and come up with proposals for the space, which, by the way, is flush up against the 3^rd Avenue Pioneer Square light rail station.

While I’m a little tired of ping pong tables being the go-to ingredient for place making these days (though, I’ve been guilty of advocating the same trope), I have to flag this one idea that came in.

Verbatim:

Taking a cue from places like Dekalb Market in Brooklyn, and the Fairgrounds in D.C., combined with great markets around the world—fill the space with local vendors set up in salvaged shipping containers, serving food from every type of cuisine we now see in Seattle along with local craft vendors, plus beer/booze garden featuring all the great King County breweries and distilleries. Allow new small restaurant businesses to start up, encouraging local entrepreneurs. Add to that an incubator urban farm, a weekend downtown farmer’s market, and concerts and cultural events. Throw in community meetings, political rallies, ping pong tables and other interactive games, an occasional movie night, dance parties etc, to make it a real civic square.  

 Happy Friday.

2. City Council member Mike O’Brien announced his plan yesterday to generate more mother-in-law apartments. Noting that only 221 backyard cottages have gone up or been given the green light since the council authorized attached accessory dwelling units or detached accessory dwelling units (ADUs and DADUs) as they’re officially called, back in 2009—even though approximately 75,000 single-family lots are eligible to build one—O’Brien laid out a batch of reforms to make it easier (and more logical) to build them. For example, O’Brien wants to get rid of the off-street parking requirement, allow both ADUs and DADUS on one lot, reduce the minimum lot size required to build them, and increase the maximum height. (Here’s a good summary.)

However, O’Brien, as Erica C. Barnett first reported, has watered down the HALA committee’s key reform idea: getting rid of the ownership requirement. Currently, in order to build an ADU or DADU, you have to live in either the principal unit or the add on in perpetuity for six months out of every year. Rather than doing away with that, O'Brien says owners have to live on site for at least a year after the mother-in-law unit gets built. 

In a 25-0 vote, the HALA committee actually voted to remove any ownership requirements calling them “a barrier to securing financing” adding: “explore the opportunities and implications of unit lot subdivision which would allow separate  ownership of the primary dwelling and the accessory dwelling.”

3. In some filing week drama, state representative Jim Moeller (D-49, Vancouver)—who had been running for lieutenant governor—announced he’s running for U.S congress instead. Moeller, who is gay, admitted he face an uphill battle in the redistricted 3^rd Congressional District, but says he’s going to be the Bernie Sanders of Washington state.

The Republican incumbent, Jamie Herrera Beutler (R-WA, 3), is a social conservative and was one of eight reps who was absent during this week’s surprise GOP vote to reject amendment to prohibit federal contractors from discriminating against gays and lesbians.