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Would you live here in Seattle? Today So Far

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  • Facing a shortage of housing, and a lot of empty office, Seattle's leaders are considering how they can remodel many of the city's buildings.
  • Carbon pollution is getting more expensive in Washington state.
  • It's interesting how history sometimes repeats itself, which is what appears to be happening in Seattle.

This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for June 12, 2023.

There are some news cycles when a certain figure seems to show up in just about every story — more than Smokey the Bear during wildfire season, more than Danny Trejo pops up in Robert Rodriguez movies, or more times than Ciscoe Morris says "Oh la la" upon seeing wildberries. Lately, that person seems to be Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell.

Facing a shortage of housing, and a lot of empty office, Seattle's leaders are considering how they can remodel many of the city's buildings. The main idea here is to convert empty office space into living space. As someone who has mostly lived at their office (and I don't mean working from home, but rather, working so much I slept at the office), I can say that this can be done, despite complaints from co-workers about your plants taking up too much room, or that you "shouldn't sleep under your desk," or "put on regular clothes, I can see your sock garters."

The ideas for this floating around Seattle are a little more advanced than my experience living at the office. Mayor Bruce Harrell recently asked the area's architects and builders about how they would perform such a massive conversion. A few buildings popped up as examples of old space that could be turned into the city's newest housing. Here's a preview of one such option.

The Mutual Life Building in Seattle's Pioneer Square is a good-looking building, but it's pretty empty these days. Experts say its interiors could be turned into hotel-style housing — private rooms with shared bathrooms and kitchens. Others considered the city's warehouses-turned-office space, and various nooks and crannies around town, because the way housing is going in Seattle, many of us would be grateful for any decent nook or cranny to call our own.

The idea seems simple enough. You have empty space in a building, why not fill it with space for people to live? How hard could that be? As KUOW's Joshua McNichols points out, there are significant challenges to this solution.

RELATED: Can Seattle turn underused office towers into apartment buildings? They're already doing it in Tacoma

RELATED: Could transformable buildings help revive downtowns?

Carbon pollution is getting more expensive in Washington state. The second auction for carbon credits in Washington was held in May. The result was a price tag of $56 per ton of carbon dioxide. That's 15% higher than the price that was set at the state's very first carbon auction in February. That first auction raised about $300 million. This second auction produced $557 million. KUOW's John Ryan has the story here.

There's also a lot of talk about emissions in Seattle, where Mayor Harrell has proposed new standards for existing buildings (yep, another Harrell headline). The key word here is "existing." Usually, when you hear about getting buildings to go green, it's about new construction. This effort sets a timeline for existing buildings to upgrade and get off fossil fuels, and lessen their emissions. How hard could that be? Just nix some old equipment, and install some new equipment. Well, some building owners say the timeline is too aggressive, and some activists say it isn't aggressive enough. Read the full story here.

It's interesting how history sometimes repeats itself, which is what appears to be happening in Seattle. After state lawmakers failed to pass a drug possession law in April, the finger pointing started immediately. As KUOW's Amy Radil puts it, that's where Seattle leaders currently find themselves after voting down a local drug possession bill.

Mayor Bruce Harrell commented that the Council's process, or lack thereof, was to blame (there's Harrell again). He says that codifying state law into local law is a "perfunctory matter," which is fancy talk for "this is just a basic, easy Council task that happens all the time and frankly we all expected it to pass" (not verbatim, my interpretation).

Last week, I noted that there is some level of finger pointing going on when it comes to the Council and the King County Prosecutor's Office, as well as some tension between council members on this issue. So there's that. Just as state lawmakers had to come back for a special session on a compromise state bill, it appears that city leaders are now starting a new discussion. Mayor Harrell says he intends to meet with the county prosecutor, judges, the city attorney, and more to find a way to get a local drug possession law.

And now, Councilmember Andrew Lewis is also stepping forward on this issue. Lewis was seen as the surprise vote when the Council rejected the drug possession proposal. As he puts it, "I’m the fulcrum vote." It appears a lot is riding on what he thinks on this issue. Lewis says he's now working with the City Attorney's Office to come up with something new. What's likely to develop in Seattle is a proposal with clearer pathways for diversion and treatment in the court process — which everybody, from every angle in town, says they want. So how hard could this be? Read more here.

AS SEEN ON KUOW

caption: Cody Wilson, with Defense Distributed, holds a 3D-printed gun called the Liberator at his shop, Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2018, in Austin, Texas.
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Cody Wilson, with Defense Distributed, holds a 3D-printed gun called the Liberator at his shop, Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2018, in Austin, Texas.
AP Photo/Eric Gay

A 3D-printed firearm, made of mostly plastic parts that can be made at home. Teenagers in the Seattle area are getting their hands on, and even manufacturing, 3D-printed weapons from the comfort of their bedrooms. Police locally and nationally are noticing that such firearms and ghost guns are showing up more and more at crime scenes. (Eric Gay / Associated Press)

DID YOU KNOW?

There are 130,000 electric vehicles (EVs) in the state of Washington, and more than half are registered in King County. The Washington State Standard recently analyzed the most recent data from the Department of Licensing and uncovered a few insights about EVs in Washington state.

Top five Washington counties with EVs (includes fully electric and hybrids):

  • King: 68,477
  • Snohomish: 14,651
  • Pierce: 10,019
  • Clark: 7,693
  • Thurston and Kitsap: I’m calling this a tie because they are fairly close together with 4,694 and 4,344 respectively.

Another interesting way the numbers have been broken down is EVs per capita. This way, you can see that while there aren’t as many of these vehicles in Island County (1,444), given the entire county population of about 87,000 people, it has a more potent EV mix than, say, Clark County — 7,693 EVs for 511,000 people right outside Portland and including the city of Vancouver.

And because I know you’re curious, Garfield County has the fewest EVs in the state — four.

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Pickleball has a noise problem. He's trying to fix it

Pickleball is America's fastest growing sport, but it has a noise problem. Bob Unetich is on a mission to fix that. The rising popularity of the game has come with some complaints, and lawsuits, over its pop, pop, pop noise. Unetich has a few ideas to solve the problem.

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