Mayor Newsom’s voluntary soft-story seismic retrofitting legislation is before the Board of Supervisors for a vote this afternoon. The legislation would “waive permit processing fees for the proportionate share of work related to such seismic retrofit upgrades.”
And while a Controller’s office report found the legislation “is not expected to significantly increase the number of voluntary retrofits,” it would reduce the fees collected from all.
∙ Soft-Story Seismic Upgrade Amendment [sfbos.org]
∙ Economic Impact Report: Voluntary Soft-Story Seismic Strengthening Bill [sfcontroller.org]
isnt the point of this legislation that the retrofits are not voluntary, but ultimately mandatory?
How would mandatory retrofitting possibly work? Consider the tenant issue, for one. “Dear citizen, our tax records indicate you spent 220K down on a 1.1M 3 unit with a soft story. Now spend 50K on a retrofit within six months or be fined. While you’re retrofitting, give each tenant $7500 to relocate for a maximum of 3 months” — something like that?
Not all retrofits require tenants to move out. If all of the work is in the garage/storage understory then you can still live in the building during the retrofit.
my understanding is that the ordinance will apply to buildings with five or more units that are three stories and higher. and most of these would not require tenants to move out. if they did require tenants to move out then landlords would be chomping at the bit to do the work.
Obviously not all would require tenants to move out. But some would. I think my point, that mandatory is a pipe dream, stands on that alone. Now think about the expense aspect.
I doubt it, anon@random. Because there would be relocation fees plus the construction fees. Only the landlords subsidizing rent controlled tenants would go for it, and only if the retrofit isn’t too expensive.
obviously you’re all unfamiliar with the unreinforced masonry building ordinance. that was mandatory, and that was expensive…same thing, different issue.
One of the least discussed aspects of the recent large earthquakes in Haiti and Chile has been the negligible damage caused by fire in either of them.
Meanwhile, here in SF, we wring our hands over soft-stories and retrofitting and continue to build most residential structures in wood.
I lived in a one-bedroom apartment during a retrofit in the late 90s.
In spite of being told by the landlord we could live there and “leave everyting in the apartment as-is”, we quickly found it 100% necessary to move every single thing out of the bedroom where the hole and i-beam were going in and live amongst my piled up possessions in the only remaining room.
Back in the retrofit room, I stood my stripped mattress up against a wall and covered it in plastic.
Sure enough, one day, sparks bounced down through the hole from the fourth floor where they were welding into my first floor apartment, hit the plastic and the whole shebang went up in flames. The workers started pouring buckets of water down the hole and desperately tried to discourage another neighbor from calling the fire department!
We had to stay in a hotel for a month over Christmas and smoke remediation alone cost around $14k. Thank god for AAA renters insurance. And if you are going through a retrofit – move out!