SF building owners miss seismic safety deadline

The owners of nearly 500 “soft story” buildings missed a city deadline Friday to apply for permits to do seismic retrofitting work, a San Francisco building department official said Monday.

Out of the 3,464 buildings required to get permits to start seismic improvements by Friday, 484 are still out of compliance, according to Department of Building Inspection spokesman Bill Strawn.

That means the owners have failed to even apply for permits to do the minimum seismic retrofitting work required by city law.

Those buildings will be tagged with notices of violation and placards warning that buildings do not meet earthquake safety requirements.

The owners will then have around 30 days to respond and come into compliance before their cases are referred to a code enforcement hearing.

In the most recalcitrant cases, a property owner might get an order of abatement that could prevent them from leasing or selling the property or using it as collateral on a loan, or even see legal action from the city attorney’s office.

However Strawn said in most cases, the department is more interested in getting procrastinators into compliance than in punishing anyone.

Strawn said of those who filed for permits in the days leading up to the deadline:

“I would say most of them were just waiting until the last minute. … Many of them also said they found that when they did try to get a professional engineer or architect to create a plan that many of those professionals are very busy right now.”

The City has been working to require seismic retrofitting for “soft story” buildings — those with an open space such as retail or a garage on a ground floor — for several years.

The program has been moving in phases, with this phase including residential buildings with five to 15 units. The fourth and last phase, with a deadline of Sept. 15, 2018, will apply to around 900 commercial and soft story buildings in liquefaction zones.

Buildings smaller than five units are not included in the seismic retrofitting program.

Cost estimates for the required retrofits vary widely from one building to another but Strawn said there is a financing program that allows property owners to apply the cost of the retrofit to their property bill and spread it out over a 20-year-period.

Property owners and tenants who wish to determine if a property is on the list and learn more about soft story retrofit requirements can go to www.sfdbi.org/softstory or visit the DBI at 1660 Mission St., First Floor at Window 8, or call (415) 558-6699.

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