More than half of the earthquake-prone buildings in Santa Monica have been retrofitted

Santa Monica has emerged as the leader in earthquake safety in California, retrofitting more than half of its earthquake-prone buildings.

Ambitious efforts to address upgrades of several types of structures that have historically magnified the death and destruction caused by a major earthquake have made the city a model as more communities grapple with seismic retrofit.

“It’s impressive how many buildings have been retrofitted since 2017, especially considering we were dealing with COVID in the middle of it all,” said Patti Harburg-Petrich, former president of Structural Engineers Assn. Southern California.

After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, no city took more decisive action than Santa Monica, which despite being 14 miles from the epicenter, was hit hard, losing 1,500 apartments – or roughly 5% of the city’s stock.

But a decade ago, it became clear that Santa Monica’s progress had faltered. Administrative procedures to order repairs to earthquake-prone buildings have been halted. And by 2013, the city could not even find the list it had created of buildings that might be at risk, The Times reported.

This report prompted a new look at seismic safety. By 2017, Santa Monica had adopted one of the most comprehensive earthquake retrofit plans in the country—again ordering the retrofitting of nearly 2,000 buildings suspected of being at risk in earthquakes.

Last month, city officials announced that 1,099 buildings identified as earthquake-prone are now in compliance with the Retrofitting Ordinance.

Of the 1,964 buildings in the city initially identified as at risk in the earthquake, five were demolished. Updated figures show that 599 buildings have previously been retrofitted or demolished, and since 2017, another 500 have become seismic safety code compliant, accounting for 56% of the initial inventory of earthquake-prone buildings. An additional 865 buildings have not been updated.

“We’ve made great progress,” Ariel Sokarras, Santa Monica’s director of construction and safety, said at a recent city council meeting.

Significant improvements have been made in the “Soft Floors” buildings mod. They are primarily timber-frame apartment buildings, with ground floor parking, held up by thin, flimsy columns that support the apartment units above. In the event of an earthquake, heavy flats can collapse.

During the Northridge earthquake, the collapse of a one-story apartment building killed 16 people.

These structures, also known as dingbats, can be modified by installing a steel frame to support the ground story. Of the 1,686 two-story buildings, 495 were updated before the last law, and an additional 462 have been updated in the past several years. More than 700 have not been upgraded yet.

Santa Monica has until 2026 to upgrade its soft-storey buildings.

More California local governments have passed seismic retrofitting ordinances in the past decade, but most cities still lack such ordinances, risking massive property damage and endangering lives in a future earthquake.

In February, Los Angeles County took the first step toward issuing a mandatory retrofitting order for the kinds of concrete buildings that catastrophically collapsed in the devastating earthquakes that rocked Turkey and Syria earlier this year. These buildings lack sufficient formation of rebar within the concrete frame, allowing pieces of concrete to explode from the columns when shaken, causing collapse.

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to require officials to prepare new rules requiring modification of “unductile” state-owned concrete buildings, as well as any buildings in unincorporated areas.

The bill is expected to be brought to the board in a public hearing later this year, said Elizabeth Vazquez, a spokeswoman for the Public Works Administration.

Responsible supervisors also ordered an inventory of all soft-storey apartment buildings in unincorporated areas, where about 1 in 10 Los Angeles County residents live. Assn flat. of Greater Los Angeles in February expressed its opposition to such a stockpile, saying that doing so would likely cause owners’ insurance premiums to increase dramatically. The group added that landlords are still suffering from pandemic-era eviction delays and rent freezes.

The renewed view of earthquake safety in Southern California follows a 2013 report that focused on the city of Los Angeles and showed how officials had known about the deadly flaw in concrete buildings for decades, but did little to address it. In 2015, the City Council approved a landmark law requiring Los Angeles property owners to retrofit non-ductile concrete and soft-storey buildings.

As of June, Los Angeles city officials reported that more than 8,900 earthquake-prone buildings, among more than 13,600 buildings, had been upgraded. Of these buildings, 8,854 were two-story buildings, as well as 68 non-ductile concrete buildings.

Santa Monica and nearby West Hollywood have issued retrofit orders that go far beyond Los Angeles. Both cities have also ordered the upgrade of at-risk “steel-frame” buildings.

A common type of construction in which the skeleton of a building consists of steel beams and columns, such structures built prior to the mid-1990s can be weak due to fragility around connection points.

During the 1994 Northridge earthquake, 25 steel-frame buildings were badly damaged, including the Auto Club of Southern California building in Santa Clarita. This earthquake showed how cracks can form in the frames of these buildings during an earthquake.

A US Geological Survey simulation released in 2008 of a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Southern California said it was plausible that five high-rise steel buildings housing 5,000 people could collapse.

In its most recent report, Santa Monica identified 80 metal frame buildings. Eleven have been updated, and two have been enhanced since the last retrofit act. The deadline is 2037.

Santa Monica officials also found that more than half of the non-ductile concrete buildings identified in the city have been retrofitted. Of the 66 buildings in this category, 32 have been modernized and three more have been strengthened since the last retrofitting law. The deadline is 2027.

Deadlines for retrofitting unreinforced masonry buildings, or brick buildings, have passed, as well as for lean-to concrete buildings such as warehouses — built by tilting concrete walls created on the ground and attached to the roof. They can be prone to collapse if the walls move away from the ceiling when shaken.

Of the 90 unsupported buildings in Santa Monica, 72 are in compliance with city ordinance; 18 is still to be updated. For upward tilted buildings, of the 42 identified buildings, 22 are congruent.

Another city that has taken action recently is Torrance. In March, the coastal suburb passed an ordinance requiring the retrofitting of buildings with soft storeys, non-ductile concrete, sloped upwards, and steel torque framing. About 1,300 buildings may be affected.

“This has been a long time coming,” said Torrance Councilman Mike Griffiths, noting that the idea has been under discussion since at least 2018. “There is enthusiastic support going forward with this.”

Referring to the earthquakes that have devastated Turkey and Syria, Griffiths said, “We definitely want to do what we can to prevent that kind of devastation in our society — when this earthquake happens here.”

Seismologist Lucy Jones said she was comforted by the retrofit progress. “Every building that has been modernized will not kill anyone,” she said.

But Jones said the dozens of brick and concrete buildings still at risk in Santa Monica are cause for concern. These types of buildings have long since been fixed in other jurisdictions, she said, and are “the most dangerous type of building”.

Santa Monica Councilwoman Caroline Torres voiced similar concerns.

“There are quite a few who remain non-compliant,” Torosis said. “We’ve seen these very destructive earthquakes happen recently. I think we know this can happen here. We’re on a fault line.”

There are various estimates of how much building retrofits will cost; In general, the smaller the building, the lower the bill. In 2017, Santa Monica estimated a cost of $5,000 to $10,000 per unit to retrofit a typical one-story building and $50 to $100 per square foot for non-ductile concrete and metal buildings.

In October, an analysis by structural engineer Keith Porter—an expert on seismic safety issues in California—concluded that Los Angeles homeowners had already spent more than $1.3 billion rehabilitating some 8,000 two-story buildings.

However, failure to retrofit and deal with damage after an earthquake can be more costly, including building repairs as well as loss of rental income.

Other California cities that have implemented soft-storey building retrofit laws include Beverly Hills, Culver City, and Pasadena in Southern California; and in Northern California, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Fremont, and most recently the Marin County community of Mill Valley.

At a Mill Valley City Council meeting last month, structural engineer David Bonowitz noted that there was no strong organized opposition to the soft story retrofit laws after they were passed.

“Once a law is in place, landlords find it easy enough to comply, tenants find it doesn’t interrupt them,” Bonowitz told the council.

“I don’t want to say this is cheap, and obviously for some owners, it’s an unexpected cost,” Bonowitz added. But most owners choose to retrofit rather than ignore it or abandon their buildings, he said.

San Jose and Long Beach have ordered inventories of soft-floor apartments and are discussing ordinances requiring retrofits.

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