19160.
The Legislature finds and declares that:(a) The harmful effects of future earthquakes can be reduced through sound retrofitting programs, also known as reconstruction programs.
(a) (b) Because of the generally acknowledged fact the United States Geological Survey predicts a greater than 99 percent likelihood that California will experience moderate to severe earthquakes in the foreseeable future, before 2038, increased efforts to reduce earthquake hazards should be encouraged and supported.
(b) (c) Tens of thousands of buildings subject to severe earthquake hazards continue to be a serious danger to the life and safety of hundreds of thousands of Californians who live and work in them in the event of an earthquake. The buildings themselves are also at risk.
(c) (d) Improvement of safety to life is the primary goal of building reconstruction retrofitting to reduce earthquake hazards.
(e) Because every dollar spent on mitigation saves several dollars in future postdisaster expenditures, a second major goal is to reduce public costs for disaster relief.
(d) (f) In order to make building reconstruction economically feasible for, and to provide improvement of the evaluation and retrofitting of buildings that are at high risk of seismic failure economically feasible, and to improve the safety of life in, seismically hazardous in these buildings, building standards enacted by local government for building reconstruction retrofitting may differ from building standards which govern new building construction.
(g) Because higher costs and other financial impediments will discourage necessary retrofitting, the standards that govern new buildings should not apply to retrofitting unless they are needed to achieve the desired increase in seismic capacity. Furthermore, subdivision (a) of Section 2 of Article XIII A of the California Constitution provides that no increase in assessed value may be imposed because of a retrofit except as the Constitution authorizes. Additionally, because of these higher costs and other financial impediments, loan programs and protections for the poor should be provided as is feasible, including, for example, programs similar to those San Francisco utilized under the mandatory retrofitting program the city and county established in 2013.
(h) “Older concrete residential buildings,” also known as “nonductile concrete residential buildings” and pre-1976 concrete residential buildings or concrete residential buildings,” are a subset of concrete buildings that may be unable to resist earthquake motion. They include lift-slab residential buildings with concrete lateral force resisting systems.
(i) These buildings were a prevalent construction type in highly seismic zones prior to the mid-1970s, are an important component of the state’s housing stock, and are in jeopardy of being lost in the event of a major earthquake.
(j) The California Office of Emergency Services reports that concrete buildings, particularly older ones with high numbers of occupants, can collapse and kill hundreds, and are the fastest growing cause of earthquake losses around the world.
(k) During an earthquake, older concrete residential buildings may create dangerous conditions, as illustrated by the catastrophic damage or collapse of older concrete buildings in the earthquakes of San Fernando, Loma Prieta, and Northridge, California (1971, 1989, and 1994); Kobe, Japan (1995); Chi Chi, Taiwan (1999); Kocaeli, Duzce, and Bingol, Turkey (1999 and 2003); Sumatra (2005); Pakistan (2005); Sichuan, China (2008); Haiti (2010); and Christchurch, New Zealand (2011).
(l) California instituted building code changes in the mid-1970s to prevent these problems in future construction, but, four decades later, the great majority of California’s concrete buildings that were constructed before these changes have still not been evaluated or retrofitted.
(m) The assistance of the public is necessary in identifying older concrete residential buildings, because no accurate inventory of older concrete residential buildings exists, and none can be compiled from external appearances or by an examination of public records.
(n) Once identified, older concrete residential buildings must be evaluated individually to assess their seismic capacity and whether retrofitting is necessary.
(o) The failure of older concrete residential apartment buildings is likely to be the source of a disproportionate share of the public shelter population in areas of the state where they are occupied by the very poor, the very old, and the very young.
(e) (p) “Soft story” residential buildings are a subset of multistory woodframe structures that may have inadequately braced lower stories that may not be able to resist earthquake motion.
(f) (q) Soft story residential buildings are an important component of the state’s housing stock and are in jeopardy of being lost in the event of a major earthquake.
(g) (r) Soft story residential buildings were responsible for 7,700 of the 16,000 housing units rendered uninhabitable by the Loma Prieta earthquake and over 34,000 of the housing units rendered uninhabitable by the Northridge earthquake.
(h) (s) During an earthquake, soft story residential buildings may create dangerous conditions as illustrated in the Northridge Meadows apartment failure that claimed the lives of 16 residents.
(i) (t) The collapse of soft story residential buildings can ignite fires that threaten trapped occupants and neighboring buildings and complicates emergency response.
(j) (u) The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) estimates that soft story residential buildings will be responsible for 66 percent of the uninhabitable housing following an event on the Hayward fault.
(k) (v) The failure of soft story residential buildings is estimated by ABAG to be the source of a disproportionate share of the public shelter population because they tend to be occupied by the very poor, the very old, and the very young.
(l) (w) The In 1995, the Seismic Safety Commission has recommended that legislation be enacted to require state and local building code enforcement agencies to identify potentially hazardous buildings and to adopt mandatory mitigation programs that will significantly reduce unacceptable hazards in buildings by 2020. buildings.
(m) (x) The current nationally recognized model code relating to the retrofit of existing buildings is Appendix Chapter A4 of the International Existing Building buildings, the International Existing Building Code, as adapted for California, and other sources are authorized for use in retrofitting by the California Building Code. However, it is not the intent of the Legislature, if other model codes relating to the retrofit of existing buildings are developed, to limit the California Building Standards Commission or a local government, pursuant to Section 19162, to adopting a particular model code. research-based recommendation or model code. Equally, the Legislature does not intend for local governments to delay needed evaluation and retrofitting programs in the hope that improved methods to evaluate and retrofit buildings may be developed. Rather, the Legislature finds that existing scientific knowledge permits immediate evaluations and retrofitting of older concrete residential buildings to significantly increase the safety of life in and reduce earthquake damage to seismically hazardous older concrete residential buildings.
(n) (y) Therefore, it is the intent of the Legislature to encourage cities and counties to address the seismic safety of older concrete residential buildings and soft story residential buildings and encourage local governments to initiate efforts to buildings, initiate programs to inform owners, residents, and the public about the dangers of these potentially hazardous buildings, mandate their evaluation at owner expense, and require retrofitting at owner’s expense to reduce the seismic risk in vulnerable soft story residential buildings. those that are unacceptably hazardous.