After the Northridge earthquake in 1994, significant steps were taken to upgrade building codes. Many of those put in place a couple of years after the quake.
Nearly two decades later, the City of Los Angeles passed an ordinance to fully retrofit certain buildings. Other cities like Santa Monica and Pasadena have their own retrofit laws and criteria for compliance.
That could mean installing steel beams or frames or a concrete wall depending on the type of building.
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There are two types of mandatory retrofit programs in the city of Los Angeles and thousands of buildings identified in need of seismic upgrades.
They are what are known as soft story buildings. An example is a building with open space ground floor parking.
And then there are non-ductile concrete buildings.
“Unreinforced concrete buildings is one type of which we have a lot unreinforced masonry buildings or non-ductile masonry buildings is another type. And that includes buildings that are made out of brick, stone, tile or other kinds of materials where you don't have that resisting systems to resist those sideways motion,” Dr. Monica Kohler from the Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering at the California Institute of Technology told the NBC4 I-Team following the devastating earthquakes in Turkey last year.
“There are a lot of buildings in those categories that are of concern. On the positive side, there's now an awareness that that we have these buildings that need to be looked at and they need to be retrofit. So there is good news in that we're making progress in the retrofitting and the reinforcement that needs to be done,” she added.
The I-Team reviewed data from the City of Los Angeles to see where that work stands right now.
More than 12,000 buildings citywide have been deemed “soft story” and in need of upgrades, with 95% having submitted retrofit plans.
Seventy-five percent of those buildings have obtained certificates of compliance, according to the LA City Department of Building and Safety’s (LADBS) website—that means the work is completely finished.
Just under 1,200 buildings are part of the non-ductile concrete retrofit program in Los Angeles.
Sixty-one percent have submitted a checklist to the city for review. A building owner has three years to provide that information after receiving an order to comply, according to the LADBS website.
Only 11% have submitted proof of previous retrofit or plans to retrofit or demolish the building which the city allows 10 years for that to happen. And 6% have completed construction, according to the city’s website.
The ordinance requires all non-deductible concrete buildings to be fully retrofitted by 2041.
The LADBS has a way for you to check buildings you live or work in. You can use their website and type in an address.
Click the dropdown menu “retrofit program,” and you can see if there is an order to comply and the status of the work.
The City of Santa Monica has a map where you can check buildings in their city.
