Check out the video from our talk with Darya Farivar at The Urbanist’s October virtual meetup. Farivar is running for State Representative in the 46th Legislative District (Northeast Seattle) in an open seat vacated by Rep. Javier Valdez’s run for State Senate. The Urbanist Elections Committee has endorsed her in the race.
Farivar talked about what inspired her to run and how her work as policy director Disability Rights Washington has prepared to hit the ground running in Olympia. That work puts her on the frontlines of efforts to expand transit access, mobility justice, and climate action across the state, as she touched on in her answers.
Farivar faces off with Lelach Rave, a doctor who is running in the centrist lane. Housing policy is a differentiator in this race. Farivar supports expanding missing middle housing in the district and endorsed the effort led by Rep. Jessica Bateman (D – Olympia) to allow multifamily housing near frequent transit, which took the form of HB 1782. That bill that didn’t make it out of the house this year, but might fare better with more firm supporters like Farivar in the legislature. Rave, in contrast, has avoided taking a stance on HB 1782 or missing middle housing reform and skipped The Urbanist’s endorsement process.
If you’d like to learn more or get involved, check out Farivar’s webpage. Also check out our LD46 questionnaires to learn more about the candidates.
Doug Trumm is publisher of The Urbanist. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrianizing streets, blanketing the city in bus lanes, and unleashing a mass timber building spree to end the affordable housing shortage and avert our coming climate catastrophe. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2019. He lives in East Fremont and loves to explore the city on his bike.