Fearing that an earthquake is inevitable, Los Angeles city officials in October voted to enact the toughest seismic code in the U.S. It will require more than 15,000 buildings to undergo structural retrofits. “Non-ductile concrete buildings, constructed before the custom building code of 1976, have been exposed as very deadly,” says Jay Kumar, technical director at Partner Engineering and Science.
After spending a year searching for seismically inadequate buildings, city officials identified 13,500 soft-wall, multi-family wood buildings and more than 1,000 non-ductile concrete structures that need seismic retrofits. The Los Angeles Dept. of Building and Safety next month will begin the enforcement process.
“The city will be sending notices in groups to avoid putting too much pressure on the construction and engineering community [and] even the Dept. of Building and Safety, which will have a new plan-check department to monitor the ordinance,” says David Cocke, structural engineer at Structural Focus, Los Angeles. “It won’t be a random plan check.”