Soft Story Buildings

10/18/2017

28 Years ago, today

USGS Earthquake Hazards Program, responsible for monitoring, reporting, and researching earthquakes and earthquake hazards

11/09/2015

Los Angeles Seismic Retrofit Ordinance 183893

The Ordinance was adopted October 9, 2015 with an effective date of November 22, 2015.The purpose of the ordinance is a mandatory standards for earthquake hazard reduction in existing soft-story and non-ductile concrete buildings and were established as follow:
• Soft Story buildings – Wood frame multi story buildings constructed prior to 1980 with soft, weak or open front walls (buildings with 3 or less units are exempted).
• Non-Ductile buildings – Concrete buildings constructed prior to 1976.

Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) will send a courtesy letter to the owners of the buildings regarding compliance, appeals and exemptions. An Order to Comply (OTC) will be sent subsequence to that letter.

Compliance Timeline For Soft Story Buildings
• Within 1 year from the date of the OTC to submit plans to retrofit or demolish the building or proof of a retrofit.
• Within 2 years from the date of the OTC to obtain a retrofit permit.
• Within 7 years from the date of the OTC complete construction.

Compliance Timeline For Non-Ductile Buildings
• Within 3 years from the date of the OTC to provide an engineering checklist indicating if the buildings or is not within the scope of the Ordinance.
• Within 10 years from the date of the OTC provide either of the following: 1) Proof of retrofit; 2) Report describing time-line to retrofit; or 3) Demolish.
• Within 25 years from the date of OTC complete the demolition or retrofit.

06/18/2015

The new Ordinance 30-15 for legalization / addition units in basements or garages is helping the building owners for easy Planning and Zoning approval as long as the work is within the envelope of the main structure and the building is a residential wood frame structure subject to seismic upgrading…

12/09/2014

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Monday proposed the most ambitious seismic safety regulations in California history that would require owners to retrofit thousands of building most at risk of collapse during a major earthquake.

09/17/2014

The Los Angeles City Council passed a motion to create three new jobs dedicated to cataloguing the more than 29,000 buildings that may be vulnerable to damage.

10/13/2013

Soft Story Buildings in Los Angeles are needed to be retrofitted for Public Safety.
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-1009-earthquake-soft-story-20131009,0,3353825.story

Los Angeles city building officials have concluded that inspectors will most likely have to visit all of the city's 29,000 older apartment buildings to determine which ones are a certain type of wood-framed building particularly vulnerable to collapse during a major earthquake.

04/29/2013

On April 18, 2013, The City and the County of San Francisco passed the mandatory Ordinance for the Soft Story Buildings on the 107 anniversary of 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

07/29/2012