The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors took a first step on Tuesday to demand the renovation of old high-rise buildings, called “non-ductile concrete”, which are more at risk of collapsing during a strong earthquake.
The council voted unanimously to direct its public works staff and attorneys to draft an update to the county’s building code that would require retrofitting all buildings under 10 years old in areas unincorporated or county owned.
The code would also require owners of affected buildings to submit structural assessment reports within three years and plans to retrofit or demolish the buildings within the next five years.
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“While county building standards have been updated to ensure new construction can withstand seismic activity, the most vulnerable buildings are large buildings made of non-ductile concrete, which tend to weaken during earthquakes. ‘an earthquake’, according to motion supervisors Holly. Mitchell and Hilda Solis.
“Those buildings that were built before 1976, when California adopted the 1976 Uniform Building Code, were erected with a limited amount of reinforcing steel in the columns, joints and walls of these structures, the making them particularly vulnerable to damage and collapse”.
The motion also urged county staff to consider the possible development of financial assistance programs that could help homeowners with the costs of these retrofit projects.
He also urged county staff to take an inventory of “soft-story” buildings in unincorporated areas that could also collapse in a strong earthquake.
In 2015, the City of Los Angeles approved expanded requirements for retrofitting more than 13,000 soft-story buildings and approximately 1,500 non-ductile concrete buildings.
Santa Monica and West Hollywood have enacted similar laws.