by Brianna Crandall — October 19, 2015—Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti signed into law a week ago a pace-setting mandatory building retrofit ordinance to ensure L.A.’s most vulnerable buildings are strengthened to prevent loss of life in the event of a major earthquake.
The historic ordinance, introduced and championed in the L.A. City Council by Councilmember Gil Cedillo, comprises two of the primary recommendations in the mayor’s Resilience by Design report. Executed in partnership with seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones, on loan from the U.S. Geological Study (USGS), the report outlines ways to better prepare Los Angeles against seismic threats.
The new law ensures L.A.’s most vulnerable buildings are strengthened to help prevent loss of life in the event of a major earthquake.
Mayor Garcetti commented:
Today, Los Angeles makes good on our promise to take action before it’s too late. Together, we’re leading the nation in requiring this level of building safety retrofit before, not after, the big quake we know is coming. We know that it’s not just the lives lost, but the lasting social and economic effects that we can avoid by strengthening our City’s skeleton — our buildings — and protecting our communities. I thank my colleague, Councilmember Gil Cedillo, for his leadership and tenacity in turning this ordinance into law, and my Science Advisor for Seismic Safety, Dr. Lucy Jones, for her work to unite the best and the brightest, and turn resilience research into actionable reality.
Retrofitting: non-ductile reinforced concrete and soft first-story buildings
Key to ensuring life preservation and economic resilience in the event of a major earthquake, the ordinance requires mandatory seismic retrofitting for two of L.A.’s most vulnerable types of buildings: non-ductile reinforced concrete, and what are known as soft first-story buildings, built before 1980. Soft first-story buildings are wood frame buildings that have a large opening on the first floor for things like tuck-under parking, garage doors, and retail display windows.
Under the new ordinance, building owners will be required to accomplish the following seismic safety measures:
- For soft first-story buildings built before 1980, under the new law, building owners will have one year to submit to the City documentation establishing that an acceptable retrofit has already been conducted or that a retrofit is required, and an additional year to acquire necessary permits. Property owners will have seven years total to retrofit their buildings upon receipt of notice. The seven years is inclusive of the two years granted to the property owner to conduct an assessment and obtain permits.
- For non-ductile reinforced concrete, building owners will have three years to submit documentation to the City to begin the inspection process, and 10 years to establish whether an acceptable retrofit has already been conducted or that a retrofit is required. Property owners would have 25 years total to complete the retrofit work, inclusive of the first 13.
Approximately 13,500 soft first-story buildings have been identified by the Department of Building and Safety as subject to this ordinance, and approximately 1,500 non-ductile reinforced concrete buildings have been identified in a study released by U.C. Berkeley last year. The Department of Building and Safety will send information on the new law to building owners, along with instructions on how to comply with it.
L.A.’s first-ever chief resilience officer (CRO)
In another pace-setting move, Mayor Garcetti also announced his appointment of L.A.’s first-ever chief resilience officer (CRO), Marissa Aho. In her duties as CRO, Aho has been charged with implementing the recommendations of the Resilience by Design report, as well as building on that work to expand L.A.’s overall resilience capacity through development of an action-oriented resilience strategy to address both acute shocks and chronic stresses.
