SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)–San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee signed legislation on
Thursday—the 107th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake and fire—that
aims to make thousands of apartments in the city safer during the next
large quake.
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| Many Marina Homes like these had to be destroyed during the last big quake (Photo: SF Chronicle) |
The seismic safety measure mandates reinforcements of all the city’s
soft-story apartments of at least five units, which are some of the most
vulnerable structures.
“Soft-story buildings are buildings where there’s a huge amount of
ground floor space that is not seismically retrofitted,” Mayor Lee said
before referencing the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. “These are the kinds
of buildings that fell apart in the Marina.”
The soft-story retrofitting will cost, on average, between $60,000 to
$130,000, and the new legislation will give building owners several
years to complete the work. The property owners can pass the much of the
costs to tenants, but Lee said he has worked with banks to help with
low-cost loans.
“We are allowing the owners to pass through a hundred percent of the
cost of this but they have to do it in a spread-out way, and then we are
giving some support to the low income tenants,” Lee said.
Seismologists predict that a major Bay Area earthquake will happen within the next 30 years.
Article Taken From CBS: Link to Original Article Here:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/04/19/mayor-lee-signs-new-earthquake-upgrade-requirement-for-sf-apartment-buildings/
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/04/19/mayor-lee-signs-new-earthquake-upgrade-requirement-for-sf-apartment-buildings/
