The Earthquake Safety Implementation Program created the Mandatory Soft Floor Retrofit Program as a multi-year, community-based effort in 2013. It was originally implemented to ensure the resiliency and safety of San Francisco homes by retrofitting multi-family units older with wooden structure. in soft ground conditions. However, regulation has reached Los Angeles.
Many apartment, commercial and residential properties have what is known as a soft floor condition. The term is a description of a building that has habitable room(s) above a porch area, carport, or garage that is not specifically designed to transmit lateral or shear forces to the previous floor.
Many California counties are drafting ordinances requiring the retrofitting of all soft-story buildings. The City of Los Angeles, in cooperation with the Structure Engineers of Southern California and others, began developing a report in January 2014 that outlined a plan to create a seismic program for the city. The intention is to improve the resilience of the city in the event of a seismic event.
The ‘Resilience by Design’ report was issued on December 8, 2014. Included in the plan is a recommendation to seismically assess and harden the City’s multi-family soft-story buildings. The City uses internal resources to identify soft-story buildings affected by the program.
Under the law, homeowners have seven years to fix the problem. Officials have identified about 13,500 apartment complexes that they suspect buildings are in need of repair. The need for redevelopment affects certain neighborhoods more than others.
The numbers, on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley, seem overwhelming. More than half of the buildings cited as seismically vulnerable are located in these two regions. Nearly 3,200 San Fernando Valley apartment buildings are in need of renovation. More than 75,000 rental units are affected.
The Palms neighborhood on the Westside is particularly vulnerable. The six-block stretch of Mentone Avenue has more than 90 structures on the city’s list of buildings in need of repair. These neighborhoods experienced mid-century real estate booms and fell prey to mid-century apartment design that has proven deadly when major earthquakes strike.
Soft-story buildings have rental units above parking spaces that are supported by a few vertical columns rather than solid foundations. If an earthquake occurs, the columns can buckle. The building would pancake and fall directly onto whatever is below.
Tenants residing in buildings that have been cited are particularly interested in the list. Not only is your safety affected, but your finances as well. There is an outrageous demand for new homes in Los Angeles. Construction crews are barely keeping up with demand, causing prices to skyrocket. This has been extremely costly for the owners of these properties.
However, LA cannot afford to lose rental units due to an earthquake. The Northridge earthquake serves as a reminder of what an earthquake can do to the Los Angeles real estate market. The 1994 earthquake took 49,000 apartments off the market in a single morning.
Modifications are not cheap. The cost ranges from $60,000 to $300,000 to bring a soft-floor apartment up to standard. Someone has to pay for the repairs. The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously allowing landlords to pass half of the remodeling costs on to tenants. A $38 monthly rent increase over a ten-year period will help pay for retrofit costs, seismic assessments, and interest on loans taken out for retrofit construction. Still, modernization turns out to be a daunting task.
Being on the list does not automatically mean that the landlord must retrofit the building. The list is compiled from examination of city records and a door-to-door search of vulnerable buildings by inspectors. A closer inspection may reveal that a property meets the standards necessary to forego modernization.
Submission of modernization compliance orders began in May. Large apartment owners received the first orders. A large apartment building has at least 16 units. Owners who have multi-family buildings with fewer than 16 units receive the orders below.
Homeowners have several options. Within two years, demolish the building, submit modernization plans to the city, or demonstrate that the building’s structure can withstand the seismic activity of an earthquake. The update must be completed within seven years of receipt of the enforcement order.
Rent increases to tenants will have a detrimental impact on their financial stability, but keeping tenants safer in the event of an earthquake is more important. Everyone’s fear is a sudden demand for mandatory retrofits, which will drive up prices for qualified building contractors and structural engineers.