FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

FEM1A-275 / March 1 998.

Planning for Seismic Rehabilitation:

Societal Issues

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Program

-on
Improved
Seismic
*

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~~~~~Safety
Provisions

Ofthe NationalInstitute ofBuiding Sciences

PLANNING FOR
SEISIM4IC REHABILITATION:
SOCIETAL ISSUES

FEMA 275

The Building Seismic Safety Council (BSSC) was established in 1979 under the auspices of the National
Institute of Building Sciences as an entirely new type of instrument for dealing with the complex regulatory,
technical, social, and economic issues involved in developing and promulgating building earthquake hazard
mitigation regulatory provisions that are national in scope. By bringing together in the BSSC all of the needed
expertise and all relevant public and private interests, it was believed that issues related to the seismic safety of
the built environment could be resolved and jurisdictional problems overcome through authoritative guidance
and assistance backed by a broad consensus.
The BSSC is an independent, voluntary membership body representing a wide variety of building community
interests. Its fundamental purpose is to enhance public safety by providing a national forum that fosters improved seismic safety provisions for use by the building community in the planning, design, construction, regulation, and utilization of buildings.
To fulfill its purpose, the BSSC: (1) promotes the development of seismic safety provisions suitable for use
throughout the United States; (2) recommends, encourages, and promotes the adoption of appropriate seismic
safety provisions in voluntary standards and model codes; (3) assesses progress in the implementation of such
provisions by federal, state, and local regulatory and construction agencies; (4) identifies opportunities for
improving seismic safety regulations and practices and encourages public and private organizations to effect
such improvements; (5) promotes the development of training and educational courses and materials for use by
design professionals, builders, building regulatory officials, elected officials, industry representatives, other
members of the building community, and the public; (6) advises government bodies on their programs of
research, development, and implementation; and (7) periodically reviews and evaluates research findings, practices, and experience and makes recommendations for incorporation into seismic design practices.
BOARD OF DIRECTION: 1997
Chairman

Eugene Zeller, City of Long Beach, California

Vice Chairman

William W. Stewart, Stewart-Scholberg Architects, Clayton, Missouri (representing the

American Institute of Architects)

Secretary

Mark B. Hogan, National Concrete Masonry Association, Herndon, Virginia

Ex-Officio

James E. Beavers, James E. Beavers Consultants, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Members

Eugene Cole, Carmichael, California (representing the Structural Engineers Association of

California); S. K. Ghosh, Portland Cement Association, Skokie, Illinois; Nestor Iwankiw,
American Institute of Steel Construction, Chicago, Illinois; Gerald H. Jones, Kansas City,
Missouri (representingthe National Institute of Building Sciences); Joseph Nicoletti,
URS/John A. Blume and Associates, San Francisco, California (representing the
Earthquake Engineering Research Institute); Jack Prosek, Turner Construction Company,
San Francisco, California (representing the Associated General Contractors of America);
W. Lee Shoemaker, Metal Building Manufacturers Association, Cleveland, Ohio; John C.
Theiss, Theiss Engineers, Inc., St. Louis, Missouri (representing the American Society of
Civil Engineers); Charles Thornton, Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers, New York, New York
(representing the Applied Technology Council); David P. Tyree, American Forest and
Paper Association, Colorado Springs, Colorado; David Wismer, Department of Licenses
and Inspections, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (representing the Building Officials and Code
Administrators International); Richard Wright, National Institute of Standards and
Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland (representing the Interagency Committee for Seismic
Safety in Construction)

BSSC Staff

James R. Smith, Executive Director; Thomas Hollenbach, Deputy Executive; Lee Lawrence
Anderson, Director, Special Projects; Claret M. Heider, Program Manager/Technical
Writer-Editor; Mary Marshall, Administrative Assistant; Patricia Blasi, Administrative
Assistant

PLANNING FOR
SEISMIC REHABILITATION.:
SOCIETAL ISSUES
FEMA 275

Developed for the Building Seismic Safety Council

by ROA (Robert Olson Associates, Inc.)
with the support of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency

BUILDING SEISMIC SAFETY COUNCIL

of the National Institute of Building Sciences
Washington, D.C.
1998

Notice: Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not
necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Additionally, neither FEMA
nor any of its employees make any warranty, expressed or implied, nor assume any legal liability or
responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, product, or process included in this publication.
Preparation of this publication has been a research and development project, and the information presented
in this report is believed to be correct. The material presented in this publication should not be used or
relied upon for any specific application without careful consideration of its implications and competent
examination and verification of the material's accuracy, suitability, and applicability by qualified
professionals. Users of information from this publication assume all liability arising from such use.
This report was prepared under Cooperative Agreement EMW-9 I-K-3 602 between the Federal Emergency
Management Agency and the National Institute of Building Sciences.
Building Seismic Safety Council activities and products are described at the end of this report. For further
information, contact the Building Seismic Safety Council, 1090 Vermont, Avenue, N.W., Suite 700,
Washington, D.C. 20005; phone 202-289-7800; fax 202-289-1092; e-mail bssc~nibs.org. Copies of this
report may be obtained by contacting the FEMA Publication Distribution Facility at 1-800-480-2520.

ii

FOREWORD
States. The Guidelines allow practitioners to choose
design approaches consistent with different levels of
seismic safety as required by geographic location,
performance objective, type ofbuilding, use or occupancy, or other relevant considerations. The
Guidelines documents also include analytical techniques that will assist in generating reliable estimates
of the expected earthquake performance of rehabilitated buildings. This extensive platform of materials
fills a significant gap in that portion of the National
Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP)
focusing on the seismic safety of existing buildings.

In 1984, the Federal Emergency Management

Agency (FEMA) initiated a comprehensive, and
closely coordinated program to develop a body of
knowledge in support of building practices that
would increase the ability of existing buildings to
withstand the forces of earthquakes. Societal issues
inherent in seismic rehabilitation processes also have
received attention. At a cumulative cost of about $26
million, this FEMA effort has generated two dozen
publications and a number of sotvare programs and
audio-visual training materials for use by design professionals, building regulatory personnel, educators,
researchers, and the general public. The program has
proceeded along separate but parallel approaches in
dealing with both private sector and federal buildings.

The Guidelines documents were given consensus

review by representatives of a broad spectrum of users including the construction industry; building designers; building regulatory organizations; building
owners and occupant groups; academic and research
institutions; financial establishments; local. state, and
federal levels of government; and the general public.
This process helped to ensure the national applicability of the Guidelines documents and encourage widespread acceptance and use by practitioners. It is expected that, with time, the Guidelineswill be referenced or adapted by standards-setting groups and
model building code organizations and will thereby
diffuse widely into building practices across the
United States.

Already available from FEMA to private sector practitioners and other interested parties is a "technical
platform" of consensus criteria on how to deal with
some of the major engineering aspects of the seismic
rehabilitation of buildings. Completed in 1992, this
technical material comprises a trilogy with supporting documentation: a method for the rapid identification of buildings that might be hazardous in an earthquake and which can be conducted without gaining
access to the buildings themselves; a methodology
for a more detailed evaluation of a building that identifies structural flaws that have caused collapse in
past earthquakes and might do so again in future
earthquakes, and a compendium of the most commonly used techniques of seismic rehabilitation.

This volume complements the technical materials

principally oriented to design professionals in the
Guidelines documents. Because of the complexities
and possible disruption caused by seismic rehabilitation projects, this volume's title, PlanningforSeismic Rehabilitation:Societal Issues, calls attention to
tvo important themes: that careful planning can minimize possibly difficult societal problems and that
there exists a wide range ofsocietal issues that may
be more significant in rehabilitation projects than in
new construction. In many ways, this publication is
intended to provide a "heads up" to those who are
considering individual or multiple building, construction class or use, or area-focused seismic rehabilitation efforts.

Along with this volume, the culminating activity in

the field of seismic rehabilitation is the completion of
a comprehensive set of nationally applicable guidelines with commentary on how to rehabilitate buildings so that they will better withstand earthquakes.
Known as the AEJRP Guidelinesforthe Seismic
RehabilitationofBuildings (FEMA 273) and the
Commentary on the Guidelinesforthe Seismic
RehabilitationofBuildings (FEMA 274), these volumes, the results of a multiyear, multimillion dollar
effort, represent a first of its kind in the United

iii

Foreword

This volume exploring societal issues reflects very

generous contributions of time and expertise on the
part of many individuals, contributions that are
warmly acknowledged. FEMA is particularly

grateful for the efforts of the BSSC and its consultant

Robert Olson, the Project Oversight Committee, and
the BSSC Project Committee and Seismic Rehabilitation Advisory Panel.
FederalEmergency ManagementAgency

iv

PREFACE and ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In August 1991, the National Institute of Building
Sciences (NIBS)i entered into a cooperative agreement with the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) for conduct of a comprehensive
seven-year program leading to the development of a
set of nationally applicable guidelines for the seismic
rehabilitation of existing buildings. Under this
agreement, the Building Seismic Safety Council
(BSSC) served as program manager with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Applied Technology Council (ATC) working as subcontractors. Initially, FEMA provided funding for a program definition activity designed to generate the detailed work plan for the overall program. The work
plan was completed in April 1992 and in September
FEMA contracted with NIBS for the remainder of
the effort.

While overall management has been the responsibility of the BSSC, responsibility for conduct of the
specific project tasks was shared by the BSSC with
ASCE and ATC. Specific BSSC tasks were completed under the guidance of a BSSC Project Committee. To ensure project continuity and direction, a
Project Oversight Committee (POC), was responsible
to the BSSC Board of Direction for accomplishment
of the project objectives and the conduct of project
tasks. Further, a Seismic Rehabilitation Advisory
Panel reviewed project products as they developed
and advised the POC on the approach being taken,
problems arising or anticipated, and progress made.
Three user workshops also were held during the
course of the project to expose the project and various drafts of the Guidelinesdocuments to review by
potential users of the ultimate project product.

The major objectives of the project were to develop a

set of technically sound, nationally applicable guidelines (with commentary) for the seismic rehabilitation
of buildings; to achieve building community consensus regarding the guidelines; and to structure the basis of a plan for stimulating widespread acceptance
and application of the guidelines. The technical
guidelines documents produced as a result of this
project-the NEHRP Guidelinesforthe Seismic RehabilitationofBuildings (FEMA 273) and its Commentay (FEMA 274)-are intended to serve as a
primary resource on the seismic rehabilitation of
buildings for the use of design professionals, educators, model code and standards organizations, and
state and local building regulatory personnel.

The final drafts of the Guidelinesand its

Commentary were submitted to the BSSC member
organizations for balloting in October-December
1996 and June-July 1997. The final versions of the
consensus-approved documents were transmitted to
FEMA for publication in September 1997.
This document was developed for the Building Seismic Safety Council by ROA (Robert Olson Associates, Inc.) to serve as an additional resource to provide those considering seismic rehabilitation with
insights into the complex economic, social, and political issues surrounding such efforts. The BSSC is
gratefull to Mr. Olson for sharing his professional
expertise and participating throughout the project.
The BSSC also wishes to acknowledge the wide variety of groups that provided Mr. Olson with helpful
contributions .and suggestions. Special appreciation
is extended to the members of the BSSC Project
Committee and Seismic Rehabilitation Advisory
Panel, the participants in the users' workshops held
during the Guidelines development effort, and the
Advisory Committee on Social and Policy Issues
formed for this project by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute-all of whom provided valuable advice and comments (see Appendix B for committee/panel membership lists.). The BSSC also

As noted above, the project work involved the ASCE

and ATC as subcontractors as well as groups of volunteer experts and paid consultants, and it was structured to ensure that the technical guidelines writing
effort benefited from consideration of: the results of
completed and ongoing technical -efforts and research
activities; societal issues, public policy concerns, and
the recommendations presented in an earlier FEMAfunded report on issues identification and resolution;
cost data on application of rehabilitation procedures;
the reactions of potential users; and consensus review
by a broad spectrum of building community interests.

Preface andAcknowledgments

wishes to acknowledge the efforts of Ugo Morelli,

FEMA Project Officer, and his technical advisor,
Diana Todd, both of whom provided thoughtful and
constructive suggestions during that have immeasurably improved the products of the project.
It should be noted that recommendations resulting
from the concept work of the BSSC Project Committee have resulted in initiation of a case studies project
that will focus on the development of seismic rehabilitation designs for over 40 buildings selected from
an inventory of buildings determined to be seismically deficient under the implementation program of
Executive Order 12941 and determined to be considered

"typical of existing structures located throughout the

nation."
Feedback from those reading this Societal Issues volume and using the Guidelinesdocuments outside the
case studies project is strongly encouraged. Further,
the curriculum for a series of education/training seminars on the Guidelines is being developed and a
number of seminars are scheduled for conduct in
1998. Those who wish to provide feedback or with a
desire for information concerning the seminars
should direct their correspondence to: BSSC, 1090
Vermont Avenue, N.W., Suite 700, Washington,
D.C. 20005; phone 202-289-7800; fax 202-2891092; e-mail bsscgnibs.org.

Eugene Zeller, BSSC Chair

J.,
vi

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Those involved in the complex process of preparing
the NEHRP Guidelinesfor the Seismic Rehabilitation ofBuildings and its Commentay (referred to in
this publication as the Guidelines or the Guidelines
documents.) recognized from the outset the importance of helping users deal with the social, economic,
and public policy complexities of rehabilitation. Indeed, the Executive Director of the Building Seismic
Safety Council, the managing organization for this
project, noted that seismic rehabilitation decisionmakers "possibly are not technically oriented but will
have to say yea or nay on incorporating information
from the Guidelinesinto local practices, be they business or regulatory.1
This SocietalIssues volume has been prepared to
acquaint potential users of the Guidelines documents
with typical problems unrelated to design and construction processes that might arise when planning or
engaging in seismic rehabilitation projects and programs. Further, it is intended to alert readers to the
difficulties inherent in implementing seismic rehabilitation recommendations.

efforts are needed and, if so, their potential scope.

The second offers a simple "escalation ladder" to
help users understand the degree of conflict inherent
in and the implications of choosing what, if any, seismic rehabilitation strategies to follow.
The four-step decision process includes:
*

Defining the problem by conducting preliminary

and, if needed, detailed analyses of the risk;

Developing and refining the alternatives for addressing seismic rehabilitation;

Adopting an approach and an implementation

strategy; and

Securing the needed resources .and implementing

the seismic rehabilitation measures.

The goals of seismic rehabilitation are important.

They include, above all, protecting life and property
in future earthquakes as well as protecting investments, lengthening a building's usable life, reducing
demands on post-eartbquake search and rescue resources, protecting historic structures, shortening
business interruption time, maintaining inventories
and customers, and reducing relocation needs/demands. Other worthy goals include limiting the need
for post-earthquake emergency shelter and temporary
housing, minimizing the release of hazardous substances, conserving natural resources, avoiding the
costly processes of settling insurance claims and applying for post-disaster aid, protecting savings and
contingency funds, reducing the amount of debris to
be removed, and facilitating an earthquake-stricken
community's return to normal patterns of activity.

The strategies available to those who become involved with seismic rehabilitation will reflect the
mixture of private efforts and governing public policies existing in the specific context (e.g., a city). Attrition is one choice and has the least conflict. A second choice is purely voluntary rehabilitation, but
even this approach may engender some conflict as
government becomes involved in the permitting process. The third choice involves a more proactive role
of government and, therefore, a potentially higher
level of conflict; it entails informally encouraging
owners to rehabilitate their buildings by establishing
some standards and triggers and then negotiating the
scope of work on a case-by-case basis as a condition
of being granted the necessary permits. The fourth
and final strategic choice and the one with the highest degree of conflict centers on government mandation of seismic rehabilitation-i.e., the establishment
of seismic rehabilitation ordinances defining which
types or uses -ofbuildings require rehabilitation, the
applicable standards, reporting and inspection requirements, time frames for compliance, and penalties for not doing so.

This publication is structured to emphasize two basic

user-oriented concepts. The first is a four- step iterative process that outlines a set of decision points so
the user can determine whether seismic rehabilitation

In recognition of the fact that each building is

unique, this publication also examines the wide spectrum of socioeconomic issues that may face those
involved in seismic rehabilitation efforts. Each is

vii

Executive Summary

discussed in terms of the nature of the problem, typical issues, and some example solutions. Considered
are problems related to historic properties, the distribution of economic impacts, occupant dislocation,
business interruption, effects on the housing stock,
rehabilitation triggers, financing rehabilitation, legal
concerns, and selection of rehabilitation targets.
Inasmuch as the intended users of the Guidelines
documents and this publication are most likely to be
local building and planning officials, private owners
and consulting design professionals, three illustrative
"application scenarios" are presented. Each scenario

viii

presents a situation (for a private company facilities

manager; a local government city manager and building official; and a consulting engineer) and a list of
considerations that would commonly have to be addressed.
The economic, social, and political complexities and
the varying seismic environments ofthe United
States are such that seismic rehabilitation programs
will have to be tailored to thousands of individual
situations. This publication therefore provides an
extensive reference section to help the reader locate
additional applicable materials.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD.ii
PREFACE and ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.

....................................................

Vii

..................

1. WHY SEISMIC REHABILITATION 9 .

Why Rehabilitation? ...................................................................
What Follows .

2. A DECISION-MAKlNG GUIDE
Introduction
An Overview of the Four-Step Process.

3
3
3

3.

SEISMIC REHABILITATION IN CONTEXT.

Look Before Rehabilitating.
...
.
Seismic Rehabilitation and Public Values .
Raising Earthquake Awareness .......................
Attrition: The Permanent Context.
Models of Escalating Conflict .10
The Voluntary Program .11
.........................................
The Informal/Encouragement Program .
The Mandatory Program .17
Rehabilitation Policy Choices .24
Benefit-Cost Analyses .27
.................................................
Building Officials: The Eye of the Story .
.28
of
Opportunity
Windows
and
Special Circumstances

............
4. TYPICAL SOCIETAL ISSUES IN SEISMIC REHABILITATION ................
Demographic, Social, and Economic Factors in Seismic Rehabilitation .........................
Evaluating the Distnrbution of Impacts Due to Seismic Rehabilitation .......................
..............
Determining Occupant Dislocation and Business Interruption ...............
.31
Housing
Minimizing the Social and Economic Impacts on
.................................
Historic Properties Destined for Seismic Rehabilitation .
Financing Seismic Rehabilitation ....................................................
Public Policy/Administrative Issues in Seismic Rehabilitation............
Triggering Seismic Rehabilitation ....................................................
.........................
Assessing Design, Regulatory, and Construction Capabilities ......
.
Managing the Program Model's Adoption and Implementation Processes ...................
..........................
Managing the Legal Issues of Seismic Rehabilitation ..........
Choosing the Targets: Single Buildings, Neighborhoods, or Classes of Buildings .................
.......................
Optimizing Multihazard Mitigation to Reduce Risk ..................

ix

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29
29
30
33
35
37
7
9
40
45
49
51

Contents

5. APPLICATIONS SCENARIOS .
.......................................................
53
Scenario One: The Private Company .53
Scenario Two: Local Government Policy Decision ....................
......... 54
Scenario Three: The Consulting Engineer's Dilemma ......................................
55
6.

SELECTED ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY AND ADDITIONAL REFERENCES .57

Core Readings .57
Additional Readings .61
Natural Hazards .61
Earthquake Hazard Mitigation .61
California Studies .62
Hazardous Buildings Studies .64
Example Rehabilitation Ordinances and Initiatives .64
Further References .67

Appendix A, THE FOUR STEPS IN DETAIL .71

Appendix B, BSSC SOCIETAL ISSUES PROJECT PARTICIPANTS .83
THE COUNCIL AND ITS PURPOSE .85

Chapter 1
WHY SEISMIC REHABILITATION?
WHY REHABILITATION?
The core argument for the seismic rehabilitation of
buildings is that rehabilitated buildings will provide
increased protection of life and property in future
earthquakes, thereby resulting in fewer casualties and
less damage than would otherwise be the case. It is a
classic mitigation strategy not unlike preventive medicine. On the human level, more earthquake-resistant
buildings will mean fewer deaths and injuries in an
event and therefore lower demand on emergency
medical services, urban search and rescue teams, fire
and law enforcement personnel, utilities, and the
providers of emergency shelter. In the commercial
sector, less damage to structures will mean enhanced
business survival and continued ability to serve customers and maintain markets or market shares. More
specifically, for commercial enterprises seismic rehabilitation will better protect physical and financial
assets; reduce inventory loss; shorten the business
interruption period; avoid the need for relocation;
and minimize secondary effects on suppliers, shippers, and other businesses involved in support services or product cycles. For governments, less damage to government structures will mean continued
services and normal processes or at least minimal
interruptions. If government structures come through
an earthquake with little or no damage, agencies will
not have to relocate services, and public officials can
respond to the immediate and long-term demands
placed on them by the event. In short, seismic rehabilitation as a pre-event mitigation strategy actually
will improve post-event response by lessening life
loss, injury, damage, and disruption.
Seismic rehabilitation also, will help achieve other
important goals, that contribute to business and community well-being. For example, seismic rehabilitation will::
* Reduce community economic and social impacts
(e.g., less loss of employment and increased
blighted areas resulting from an earthquake and
less loss of tax revenues to support public
services).

* Minimize the need for and the process manaaement time required to obtain disaster assistance as
well as the financial impacts of filing insurance or
disaster assistance claims, seeking loans or grants,
and liquidating savings or contingent reserves.
* Help to protect historic buildings, structures. or
areas that represent unique community values and
that provide the residents with a sense of their
unique histories.
* Minimize impacts on such critical community services as hospitals and medical care facilities,
whether or not such services are provided by private. nonprofit, or government entities.
* Support the community's post-earthquake need to
return to a pattern of normal activities by helping
to ensure the early reopening of business and civic
facilities (e.g., functioning schools, stores, and
government offices). In addition to reducing demands for immediate assistance, such as providing emergency shelter and food, restoring normal
activities as soon as possible contributes greatly to
the psychological well-being of a community e.g., children return to school, parents return to
work, businesses reopen, and links with the
broader "outside world" are restored.
* Minimize the many and often subtle direct and
indirect socioeconomic impacts of earthquakes,
some of which emerge slowly but often last a long
time. For example, after a disaster, low-income
residents often become displaced which adds to
any existing homeless problem and increases the
burden on community services and charitable organizations, often reducing their abilities to provide regular services. Further, marginal
businesses may not be able to reopen, thus weakening a community's economic and social fabric
and reducing tax revenues, which may result in a
shift in the tax structure to pay for public services.
Finally, the distribution of impacts may mean that
adjacent areas gain at the expense of the damaged
areas.

ChapterI

* Reduce the difficult environmental impacts of

earthquakes. These include, for example, the
need to dispose of large quantities of debris, the
release of asbestos in damaged buildings, and the
contamination of the air and water with spilled
hazardous materials.
In sum, the rehabilitation of existing buildings to better resist future damaging earthquakes truly is "preventive medicine." While seismic rehabilitation
costs money, it can significantly reduce future losses
and, in economic terms, can be considered an investment to protect assets currently at risk. Emergency
response capabilities, as good as they are in U.S.
communities, are no substitute for amelioration ofthe
direct and indirect losses to each citizen's physical
assets and each community's infrastructure.

WHAT FOLLOWS?
Completing this SocietalIssues volume are five additional chapters plus an appendix to help the reader
achieve the multiple goals of seismic rehabilitation.

Chapter 2 provides a decision-making guide to support the analysis and implementation of efforts to
seismically strengthen buildings. Chapter 3 describes the broad context in which seismic rehabilitation occurs, explains how different approaches involve various complexities and degrees of conflict,
and provides guidance and case study examples of
various approaches and tactics to achieve seismic
rehabilitation. Chapter 4 examines a wide range of
typical societal problems and explores various ways
of addressing them. Chapter 5 presents three appli-.
cation scenarios designed to help the user understand
his or her situation and the factors that may be involved in initiating a seismic rehabilitation effort.
Chapter 6 points the reader toward some of the socioeconomic literature related to seismic rehabilitation
while the Appendix provides a detailed discussion of
the four-step process for solving problems. The report concludes with an overview of the purpose and
activities of the Building Seismic Safety Council and
a list of those involved in the Guidelinesproject.

Chapter 2
A DECISION-MAKING GUIDE
INTRODUCTION
While the seismic rehabilitation of existing buildings
presents many of the same challenges to private as
well as public sector decision-makers, this publication is intended primarily for local government officials, especially those in planning, redevelopment
and building departments, and public agency and
private engineers who find themselves involved in
the public policy aspects of seismic rehabilitation.
Despite the fact that each building has "its own story"
when it comes to seismic rehabilitation, similar public policy issues reappear so often that providing a
generalized approach to achieving seismic rehabilitation is possible. Therefore, a generic, four-step process is outlined for use primarily by local government
officials as well as, building owners, engineers,
-and/orprivate consultants seeking approval from local governments to seismically rehabilitate -abuilding
or group of buildings.
Secondarily, this publication is directed toward
private-sector decision-makers. The term "private
sector" is admittedly quite broad, encompassing the
owner of one office building in a small city in a low
seismic risk (and awareness) zone, the owner of
multiple-unit apartment buildings in a zone of
moderate risk (and awareness), a large corporation
with facilities in high seismic risk (and awareness)
zones, and al] those in between.

It should be noted that even if community or privatesector decision-makers responsible for one or more
types of earthquake-vulnerable structures anticipate
and address the social, economic, and political complications inherent in seismic rehabilitation, the problems will not be eliminated. This approach will,
however, facilitate their management. In addition,
effectively managing the human or nontechnical
problems of seismic rehabilitation hopefully will
make the use of the separate but companion engineering publications, the Guidelines documents,
more tailored and therefore more sensitive to particular situations and environments.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE FOUR-STEP

PROCESS
A common four-step problem-solving process follows:
1. Defining the problem
1A. Conducting preliminary analysis
IB. Conducting detailed analysis (+ feedback)
2. Developing and refining alternatives (+ feedback)

Nonetheless, despite obviously different contexts and

specific problems, the shared nature of the
earthquake-vulnerable structure problem establishes
certain commonalities between the private and public
sectors. Although some parts of this publication may
be more relevant than others, the hope is that it will
be useful to corporate facility managers who wish to
seismically rehabilitate a building or group of buildings and must secure appropriate approvals and support from chief executive officers, boards of directors, or clients. It is important to note, however, that
the engineering expertise of a design professional
(architect, engineer, code official) is a prerequisite to
the appropriate use of the Guidelines documents.

3. Adopting an approach and implementation

strategy (+ feedback)
4. Securing resources and implementing (+ feedback)
As in many processes of this type, this generic fourstep model emphasizes the feedback function at every step because no existing building seismic rehabilitation effort can possibly succeed in isolation, no
matter how splendid the technical components. Seismic rehabilitation takes place in a ivide variety of
socioeconomic and political contexts, and continuous
feedback and adjustments are necessary for success.
The number of affected buildings, the acceptable
level of risk defined by the selected rehabilitation
performance objectives, the duration of the program,

Chapter2

the cost, and the social and economic impacts are

interdependent. By the very number and nature of
the variables, seismic rehabilitation decision-making
is very complex for it must balance so many considerations.

3. Definition of the specific problems and impacts,

and

The level of detail, amount of data collected, degree

of analysis, formality of procedures, and resources
committed will vary with the intended use of the engineering publications (the Guidelines documents)
and with the conditions and circumstances faced by
the reader. As a result, given differing community,
jurisdictional or corporate contexts, each reader must
determine the extent of data collection and analysis
of alternatives needed. In other words, each step
constitutes a kind of progressive discovery leading to
a better understanding of the issues. Each step tests
whether the seismic risk justifies the cost and effort
involved in taking the next step. Thus, the process is
essentially iterative with the steps building on
assumptions and estimates of the nature and scope of
potential problems and then allowing expansion and
refinement of the approach.

The product of Step 1B is a decision to proceed or

not proceed given consideration of alternatives and
the impact of the decision.

Step 1, "Defining the Problem," actually comprises

two substeps: "preliminary analysis"and "detailed
analysis." Preliminary analysis (Step IA) entails an
initial and perhaps even cursory survey of the general
issues raised by an identified earthquake threat. Because earthquake-induced life and property losses
tend to be concentrated in building types already
known to be vulnerable, once a relatively specific
degree of seismic risk and likely consequences have
been identified, the issue of seismic rehabilitation
arises almost immediately. Therefore, the product of
Step lA is simply a good enough understanding of
the seismic risk, the possible scope of potential building rehabilitation efforts, and the implications of such
rehabilitation for owners, occupants, and the community so that an informed decision to proceed or not
proceed can be made. If a decision is made to proceed, Step lB, detailed analysis, defines more precisely the nature of the risk and the problem through:
1. Collection of data on the physical nature and policy implications of possible target buildings
2. Refinement and expansion of the initial understanding,

4. Identification of the people and organizations

potentially affected by rehabilitation.

Step 2, "Develop and Refine Alternatives," involves

using the data assembled under Step IB to develop
and refine alternative approaches that address the
seismic rehabilitation of existing buildings in light of
the risk, the costs, and the social and economic impacts. Thus, Step 2 provides a kind of "menu" delineating seismic rehabilitation options for communities
in various risk situations. Step 2 usually is a very
long and involved process, but the key variables always are the desired performance levels, the scope of
the approach, and an estimate of the costs. The first
determines how much rehabilitation needs to be accomplished; the second determines how many buildings of what type and use are to be subject to rehabilitation; and the third estimates the cost of each alternative. The outcome of Step 2 is a recommendation,
usually from a facilities manager or building official,
to the next-level decision-maker(s) on a particular
approach to seismic rehabilitation. For public entities, an environmental impact report may be required
as part of this step.
Step 3, "Adopt an Approach and Implementation
Strategy," is the decision point at which the city or
county council, chief executive officer, board, building owner, agency director, or whoever is charged
with the final responsibility considers the rehabilitation recommendation, receives input from other
sources, and weighs the alternatives (not to be ignored is the alternative of doing nothing). Fundamentally, the decision to act on, modify, or reject a
seismic rehabilitation plan is a political decision,
whether made by government or a private-sector
body. It is a decision that allocates scarce resources,
costs, and benefits. It determines who benefits,/who
pays how much and when, and who bears the indirect
costs (e.g., employees, tenants, suppliers,). Finally,
the decision to act sets in motion the necessary organizational routines to actually yield activity, in this
case seismic rehabilitation.

A Decision-makingGuide

Step 4, "Secure Resources and Implement," is the

critical process that turns a decision to rehabilitate
into its physical result--safer, more seismically resistant buildings. Without resources (personnel, budget) to carry out seismic rehabilitation, the adoption
of an approach is simply "a piece of paper." In addition, even when the necessary resources are allocated, implementation may be quite extended
depending upon the number of buildings slated for

rehabilitation, and feedback is perhaps more important here than in any other step. Whoever is charged
with overseeing the seismic rehabilitation must be
kept apprized of any new techniques or standards
that might alter the approach. In addition, the program manager must provide for quality control and
must monitor and mitigate, to the extent possible,
both the anticipated and the unanticipated socioeconomic and political side effects of seismically rehabilitating buildings.

Chapter 3
SEISMIC REHABILITATION IN CONTEXT
earthquake safety and are designed for use in a wide
variety of settings. Overall, the purpose of the
Guidelines documents is to help you with the technical aspects of actually accomplishing seismic rehabilitation. This volume, however, explores the nontechnical factors involved in seismic rehabilitation.

EACH BUILDING HAS ITS OWN STORY

Earthquake-vulnerable buildings exist nationwide,
but the earthquake hazard is not uniform across the
country. Moreover, awareness of th earthquake hazard, the precursor to any action, varies even more
than the hazard itself. Therefore, tackling the earthquake-vulnerable building problem takes place in an
incredibly diverse set of geographic, social, economic, and political environments. Further complicating
the situation is the fact that no two buildings (even
within the same jurisdiction) ever seem to present
exactly the same problems. Each, building has its
own earthquake-vulnerability profile - location,
architecture, structural system, occupancy, economic
role, and financing. In other words, each building
has its own story.

Precisely because seismic rehabilitation is not a

purely technical process, an often bewildering array
of problems and complexities arise. Abating the risk
posed by earthquake-hazardous buildings often
brings into play social, economic, psychological, and
various other considerations that make seismic rehabilitation very complex and, in those situations involving compliance with governmental seismic rehabilitation requirements, quite political.

In sum, while few would quibble with the general

legitimacy of a policy whose goal is the seismic rehabilitation of earthquake-vulnerable buildings, seismic
rehabilitation will be achieved on a city-by-city and,
actually, on a building-by-building basis. Such is life
in a continent-sized nation with a federal governmental system. The intent of this chapter is to place and
explain seismic rehabilitation in various socioeconomic and political contexts and to offer a set of approaches or "models" to inform and guide action.

SEISMIC REHABILITATION AND

PUBLIC VALUES
By standard definition, politics is all about "the authoritative allocation of values' or, as one scholar put
it, politics is "who gets what, when, and how." Politics, therefore, is an arena of conflict, cooperation,
and compromise in which a pluralisticldemocratic
society, or a constituting jurisdiction, determines how
and by whom a particular problem is identified, defined, addressed, and resolved - and then at what
and whose cost. Given that seismic rehabilitation is
really about "life safety," a central value if ever there
was one, it often becomes political. Following directly from this observation, four points should be
kept in mind:

LOOK BEFORE REHABILITATING

In point of fact, if you are reading this document, you
most likely are already beyond what is known in policy analysis as the "problem recognition stage." Precisely because you are reading this volume and presumably the Guidelinesdocuments, you are aware of
buildings that may be seismically unsafe and you
wish, or feel compelled, to do something about the
threat. In other words, you are already aware that a
problem may exist, and you wvant to learn more about
how to solve it.

First, seismic rehabilitation projects entail direct

*costs (e.g, engineering evaluations, the rehabilitation
itself, temporary relocation), and these have to be
allocated in some fashion or combination to building
owners, tenants, government, andlor the public.
Second, seismic rehabilitation also entails social disruption (individual as well as neighborhood) and economic loss (foregone income). These "indirect
costs," especially in urban areas, often affect the most

It merits noting that the Guidelines documents represent a federally funded engineering innovation in

Chapter3

marginal populations (the poor, minorities, the elderly) and must be borne in some way as well.
Third, it has proven inherently difficult to explain to
affected populations the meaning of seismic performance levels, earthquake risk, and the effectiveness
of- and trade-offs between - varying rehabilitation standards. While both direct and indirect costs
are immediate, visible and have to borne by someone, the benefits of enhanced life safety are only
probabilistic and rather vague (when an earthquake
strikes, fewer lives will be lost); therefore, the debate
often appears to suffer from misperception, misunderstanding, and shifting ground.
In fact, however, seismic rehabilitation involves values in conflict. The conflicts revolve around the
trade-offs between improved life safety, a somewhat
abstract concept, and very concrete costs, which are
not abstract at all. Alesch and Petak (1986, pp. 6667) capture the essence of this conflict with a quote
drawn from one of the public hearings on the famous
Los Angeles "Chapter 88" ordinance at which a citizen offered the following emotional observation:

tion tends to strike this "changing the rules" nerve in

our culture. It actually took a 1966 California Supreme Court decision to clear away legal obstacles
for jurisdictions to require the abatement of a hazardous structure. While the particular case (City of Bakersfieldv. Milton Miller) involved condemnation
based on fire hazard, the decision provided the legal
basis for subsequent retroactive earthquake programs
in California. The court held:
The fact that a building was constructed in accordance with all existing statutes does not immunize
it from subsequent abatement as a public nuisance.
... In this action the City [Bakersfield] does not
seek to impose punitive sanctions for the methods
of construction used in 1929, but to eliminate a
presently existing danger to the public. It would be
an unreasonable limitation on the powers of the
City to require that this danger be tolerated ad infinitum merely because the hotel did not violate the
statute in effect when it was constructed 36 years
ago.
The essential validity of City ofBakersfield v. Milton
Miller was upheld in 1984 by Barenfeld v. City of
Los Angeles, a case specifically involving
earthquake-vulnerable buildings. Thus, for improved
seismic safety, it seems that "changing the rules" is
an inevitable byproduct of disaster learning and the
impact of such learning on governmental responsibility for public safety.

Now I've heard everything! Our brilliant City

Council is going to tear down 14,000 buildings
because there might be an earthquake that might
knock these buildings down and the people might
get hurt. So you're going to knock them down first
and leave them [the people] homeless instead.
That's like cutting off your arm so then you won't
ever have to wony about breaking it. Are you
gentlemen playing with all your marbles?
Fourth, earthquake awareness varies significantly
across regions of the United States and interacts subtly with all of the above, with a normalcy bias (don't
rock the boat), and with a reluctance by political
leaders to being perceived as "unfair." The perception of being unfair needs explanation, however.
Even iftheir life-safety motives are as pure as driven
snow, political leaders are sensitive to this charge for
it has deep roots.

Historically, earthquake disasters often have provided nasty surprises by showing entire classes of
buildings to be seismically unsafe. The 1933 Long
Beach earthquake demonstrated unreinforced masonry (URM) bearing wall buildings to be unsafe and
the 1971 San Fernando earthquake confirmed the
poor performance of these buildings and also showed
that more newer "soft-stories" and "tilt-ups" were unsafe. The problem, of course, is that these types of
buildings were not known to be earthquake-vulnerable or to pose life safety threats when they were originally constructed. Indeed, many buildings now
deemed unsafe in an earthquake of a specified magnitude and ground motion met code requirements or
at least common practice at the time of their
construction. This "then/now" knowledge problem is
the source of the tension between disaster learning
and the political-cultural reluctance by decision-makers to be seen as changing the rules retroactively.

The nation's founding fathers included in the Bill of

Rights a guarantee against ex postfacto (retroactive)
legislation-that is, they expressly forbade laws that
would make illegal an act that was not illegal at the
time it was committed. This is a prohibition against
"changing the rules after the game has been played."
In the earthquake safety domain, seismic rehabilita-

Seismic Rehabilitationin Context

RAISING EARTHQUAKE AWARENESS

The most recent example of an unpleasant earthquake lesson comes from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which revealed as vulnerable steel frame
buildings, long believed to be the most earthquakeresistant type of construction. As a January 20,
1995, press release from the Structural Engineers
Association of California, Applied Technology
Council, and the California Universities for Research
in Earthquake Engineering (SEAOC/ATC/CUREe)
noted:

In recent years, considerable effort has been devoted

to the preparation and wide dissemination by the
Building Seismic Safety 'Council (BSS'C) of provisions and technical criteria for the construction of
new buildings and certain nonbuilding structures. Of
particular relevance to the rehabilitation-focused
Guidelines documents, however. was a finding from
an evaluation ofthe dissemination process of the
BSSC's new buildings resource document:

The damage to . .. steel buildings has raised many

serious questions for the design profession. Because many damaged structures were designed using the latest building codes and built according to
modern construction practices, seismic building
codes for steel construction have been essentially
invalidated.

Much of the success of BSS'C's progra

was con-

tingent upon first raising the target audiences'

awareness of the nature -oflocal seismic risks and
of the NEHRP Recommended Provisionsthem-

selves. [Regarding implementation] the planning

should take into account the importance of coordinating this effort with educational programs being
conducted by other federal, state, regional, and local governmental agencies as wvell as non-profit
professional and trade organizations (Nigg and
Mushkatel).

In sum, earthquakes teach, usually painfully if not

tragically, but the learning generates state-of-the-art
advances in earthquake engineering that, in turn, generate "guilty knowledge" about flaws in the existing
building stock. The term "guilty knowledge" refers
to the gap in time between the lessons disasters teach
to the design professions and the corresponding policy and administrative changes. This time lag between awareness of specific risks and appropriate
mitigation actions - the gap between a spot on the
engineering and geotechnical learning curve and a
spot on a corresponding public policy and administrative curve - has been termed "guilty knowledge."
This term is a convenient way to express two different learning curves; it does not have any legal implications as used in this context (Olson and Olson,
1996, p. 30).

Awareness was and remains the key to managing everything in the nontechnical aspects of seismic rehabilitation but especially to the approach and tactics
chosen. Except for relying on normal attrition, many
decisions will boil down to managing levels of anticipated conflict inherent in choosing seismic rehabilitation strategies.
ATTRITION: THE PERMANENT
CONTEXT
It must be kept in mind that a regular building replacement process is ongoing in virtually every jurisdiction inthe United States, a process that directly
affects the earthquake-vulnerable building problem.
For seismic rehabilitation, this attrition is a contextual process of building replacement that can - but
not always does - make the hazardous structure
problem more tractable. For attrition to have a positive effect on seismic rehabilitation, ajurisdiction
must exhibit strict adherence to current codes con-

The increasingly sophisticated knowledge within the

engineering community about weaknesses in the seismic resistance of various types of existing buildings
is the moral and professional core of, and the motivator for, the Guidelines documents. If the engineering
state of the art were static and no learning occurred,
there would be no "guilty knowledge" and no need
for seismic rehabilitation or, for that matter, the
Guidelinesdocuments and this volume. To The contrary, however. the engineering state of the art is dynamic, not static; disaster learning occ5s, generating
guilty knowledge: Thus, seismic rehabilitation becomes professionally important, and the Guidelines
documents, and this volume are now necessary.

taining seismic provisions appropriate for its seismic

risk zone. The idea is to prevent the construction of

new buildings of the types previously identified -as
earthquake-vulnerable (and of other earthquake-vulnerable classes for that matter) while the normal pro-

Chapter3

cess of building replacement slowly reduces the number of existing earthquake-vulnerable buildings.
It might be helpful to think of earthquake-vulnerable
buildings as a "stock and flow" problem. At any
point in time, ajurisdiction will have a certain number of buildings that present life-safety threats in an
earthquake of a specified magnitude and ground motion. That is the "stock" of the problem. Simultaneously, normal attrition processes in the community
are reducing the number of vulnerable buildings,
which is the "flow out" as it were. One key mitigation measure then is to prevent new, nonearthquakeresistant buildings from being constructed, which is
the "flow in." In fact, in jurisdictions where an earthquake risk exists but the building codes do not have
adequate seismic requirements or where the seismic
requirements are not adequately enforced, the stock
of vulnerable buildings may actually increase (i.e., if
"flow in" exceeds "flow out," the stock of problem
buildings goes up). Thus, for attrition to work positively with, not negatively against, efforts at seismic
rehabilitation, a jurisdiction must keep up with the
state of the art in building codes, enact them in a
timely manner, and see to their careful enforcement.
Looked at from a different perspective, attrition is a
race between building replacement and the recurrence interval of the appropriate "planning earthquake" for that jurisdiction. The assumption is that
attrition will reduce the number of earthquake-vulnerable buildings to some acceptable minimum before the next earthquake capable of bringing them
down or rendering them economically useless occurs.
For the record, assuring that attrition plays a positive
role in abating the hazard posed by earthquake-vulnerable buildings is not without a level of conflict
itself. Enactment and enforcement of a building code
for new construction always entails debate, especially
for jurisdictions that have never had a building code
or seismic provisions within that code. Such conflict
is usually limited to scientific and technical arguments about the existence of an earthquake hazard in
that jurisdiction or, if existence of hazard is accepted,
the severity of the risk. In the latter case, arguments
about recurrence intervals for a specific magnitude
event (the planning earthquake) predominate.
Extended attention to attrition is given here precisely
because it is permanent and will play a role in every

one of the three following models of seismic rehabilitation, even in the "Mandatory Program Model." For
example, in the Los Angeles program, attrition alone
over the life of the program was expected to reduce
the number of unreinforced masonry buildings
(URMs) by 50 percent (4,000 buildings), leaving the
city with only a hard core of 4,000 URMs with which
to deal. As of 1991, 10 years after enacting the
URM ordinance, of the URMs in Los Angeles, 53
percent had been strengthened, 17 percent had been
vacated or abandoned, 16 percent had been demolished, and 14 percent were still pending action (by
1995, this may have been reduced to 5 percent according to Comerio, 1991, and personal communication, 1995).

MODELS OF ESCALATING CONFLICT

Two observations can be offered about the conflict
potential inherent in the application of the Guidelines
documents. First, the higher the earthquake awareness or "earthquake consciousness" of a region or
jurisdiction, the easier it will be for proponents to
explain enhanced life-safety probabilities and thereby
justify and gain acceptance of seismic rehabilitation,
at least as a concept. Looking back, it is not a coincidence that California has been a legislative leader in
hazardous structure abatement at both the state and
local levels with the most famous ordinance being
"Chapter 88" of the City ofLos Angeles Building
Code.
Second, most analyses have focused on formal hazardous structure abatement programs that involve
public policy directed at rehabilitating an identified
set of structures. Indeed, the only book-length study
is Alesch and Petak's 1986 The Politicsand Economics ofEarthquake HazardMitigation. Unreinforced
Masonry Buildings in Southern California,which
describes and analyzes the abatement efforts in
(chronologically) Long Beach, Los Angeles, and
Santa Ana.
In such formal or "mandatory" programs, the criteria,
priorities, timetables, and costs are publicly debated
- always contentiously - before the decision-makers (usually a city council) reach the final approval
stage and then move into implementation. Little

10

Seismic Rehabilitationin Context

department is on the point, pushing or at least implementing surveys and program directives.

wonder that local governments find mandatory programs very difficult to enact and implement.
Such programs must be technically defensible, must
provide for exceptions and appeals, require staff or
consulting expertise, and must be perceived as not
violating the "not changing the rules of the game"
principle of fairness or as singling out owners and
occupants of the targeted building class(es) for costly
rehabilitation measures. As a result, mandatory programs tend to mobilize vocal constituencies. California examples of this type of formal program would
include not only Los Angeles, Long Beach, and
Santa Ana but also Santa Rosa and a few other cities.

......
I (&
Highest Conficdt)
B The- MandatoryeProran.f.i.........
,7
S6T-he"InfbrmallE

2.'s
.

The mandatory program idea, however, is not feasible for most jurisdictions in the United States outside
California given the varying levels of seismic hazard
but low levels of seismic awareness. Only in jurisdictions with relatively high levels of seismic hazard
and awareness will a mandatory program proposal
achieve a place on political agendas, in part because
it effectively lodges at the upper end of a policy escalation ladder based on conflict potential.

entou
rant

Parogramn

.1...''. ... ; ' t-'

'.''"'Wl ' .. .'iS

(:ILowest Conflict- The."oWluntryPrgramil"

Figure I Seismic rehabilitation escalation ladder.

A slight variation of this approach reflects the corn

plexity of the relationships between levels of government. Sometimes local officials or, more precisely,
local issue advocates want the rules to be set by the
state, for example, because they expect a high degree
of conflict over the issue. Even if they believe seismic rehabilitation is the "right thing to do," state
mandates allow local implementors to skillfuIlly avoid
conflict by explaining that they have no choice but to
"carry out a state mandate."

There are, however, two other generic seismic rehabilitation policy options, both of which may be more
realistic for much of the United States than the
"Mandatory Program" model: the "Informal/Encouragement Program" model and the "Voluntary
Program" model. To illustrate the level of conflict
associated with the three models, see Figure I below
which places them on a I 0-point "escalation ladder."

The Voluntary Program

Not adequately appreciated is the number of buildings that have been and are being seismically rehabilitated by their owners without compulsion by local
building officials. Such rehabilitation may focus on
the seismic aspect alone or may feature seismic aspects as part of a larger remodeling effort. Either
way, it is essentially a private Or at least an ownerdriven and, therefore, low-conflict process that explains its placement at conflict point "1" on the escalation ladder. Under this "Voluntary Program," owners decide, for a variety of reasons, to seismically
rehabilitate their structures and approach building
officials for permits and perhaps even for assistance
or advice on how a building or buildings might be
modified to achieve a desired level of earthquake
performance. The building official then permits
owners to rehabilitate the buildings on their own.
Interestingly, following damaging earthquakes, vol-

Note, however, that this escalation ladder should not

be confused with seismic rehabilitation triggers,
which are discussed later and define under what conditions seismic rehabilitation requirements must be
met. Rather, this ladder is a way of viewing the
range of possible policy choices and sorting out their
respective implications.
The escalation ladder also highlights another crucial
variable - the degree of "pro-activity" exhibited by
a building department. As will be explained below.
in the "Voluntary Program," a building department is
essentially passive. In the "'Informal/Encouragement
Program," a building department plays a stronger,
more pro-active role, although on a selective basis.
In the "Mandatory Program," however, a building

11

Chapter3

untary rehabilitations often surge - even in jurisdictions not directly affected by the event.
The advantages of the "Voluntary Program" are considerable. Government coercion is not needed. Ordinances are not required. The media do not become
involved. Motivations and decisions are largely internal. Courts and lawyers are largely avoided. Politics is seldom a factor. Community impacts are relatively minor. This approach is neither as rare nor as
utopian as it might appear. Seismic rehabilitation is
going on all the time in a wide variety ofjurisdictions, but it occurs largely without notice except possibly within the local professional community.
Chosen from literally dozens of examples, four significant voluntary rehabilitations are described below:
a public building in Utah; a private building in South
Carolina; a private multibuilding complex in California; and a school rehabilitation program in Missouri,
the case that best illustrates the model. Each case is
different, but all share the common theme of low profile, internal decision-making and self-funding. A
fifth case from Tennessee, an effort that was unsuccessful, is also described below for the sake of balance.
Voluntary seismic rehabilitation appears to occur in
either of two contexts. In some cases, seismic considerations are piggybacked onto broader remodeling
or rehabilitation efforts. In other cases, the seismic
rehabilitation is an end in itself and is undertaken as
an investment in the survival of the building against a
recognized earthquake threat. The essence of the
decision remains at the building level, and it is made
by the owner, although mortgage and/or insurance
companies also may play a role.
A special note on remodeling is in order. A remodeling effort can cut both ways for seismic resistance of
a structure. While seismic strengthening obviously
can be piggybacked onto remodeling, a danger lurks
there as well. Unless a building official is attentive,
especially in areas where earthquake awareness is
low, remodeling can actually reduce the earthquake
resistance of a structure depending upon how the remodeling is designed and carried out (e.g., it can
weaken a load bearing or shear wall). One building
official who caught such a remodeling weakening
combination termed it a version of "one step forward,
two steps back." The Guidelines documents them-

selves serve as a bulwark against such inadvertent

weakening and as a resource for building officials
caught in such situations.
The "Voluntary Model" contains obvious defects.
First, the scope is limited only to those buildings
whose owners are enlightened and/or who see longterm financial advantages in seismic rehabilitation.
In other words, the rehabilitation is not systematic
and depends upon financial feasibility and owner
receptivity or "good citizenship." Second, the pace
of seismic rehabilitation in a community is unpredictable for the same reasons. Third, the direct costs as
well as the indirect costs will be passed along to the
tenants, employees, and/or consumers without public
discussion and, therefore, without a wide airing of
alternatives and consideration of amelioration possibilities for those affected. Fourth, it is likely that the
"worst" buildings, precisely because they are
marginal-value properties in the first place, will not
be rehabilitated by their owners, a fact that has an
interesting dark side.
If we assume that seismically rehabilitated commercial and residential buildings will command higher
rents, it will drive out the poorer tenants and send
them toward cheaper space - very likely into those
buildings whose owners have not seen fit to rehabilitate their structures. Therefore, at least in the short to
middle run, it is possible that voluntary seismic rehabilitation may actually increase the population concentration at risk in other (unrehabilitated) buildings.
In addition, seismic rehabilitation and its costs are
only inputs into a larger decision. While the Guidelines may offer seismic rehabilitation goals, techniques and cost estimates, other factors may prove
decisive, especially if the total rehabilitation project
costs outweigh new construction costs.
In total, the case studies illustrate that while the
Guidelines documents will be extremely useful,
many other factors often will be present. As appealing as voluntary approaches are, there are some serious risk perception and economic obstacles to their
more widespread use. Among them are individuals'
estimation of the probability of an earthquake damaging their structure being sufficiently low that the investment in rehabilitation will not be justified; the
tendency to assign very high discount rates to such
decisions, which results in giving future benefits very

IW

12

Seismic Rehabilitationin Context

little weight compared to spending money for protective measures; and judgments that current prices for
seismic rehabilitation measures simply are too high,
to even focus on the potential value of reducing futare losses. Such determinations are likely based on
arguments having little to do with expected
benefit/cost comparisons.

Case 1: The 1894 SaltLake City/c unty AdministrationBuilding

Salt Lake City, like all majorpopulation centers in
Utah, sits astride the Wasatch Faultat the base of
the Wasatch Mountains. The fault is consideredhistoricallyactive but so far has not done major damage to the urban areasofProvo, Salt Lake -City,or
Ogden. The US. GeologicalSurvey and the Utah
GeologicalSurvey consider the earthquakethreatto
be serious.

requirementsforthe region. Subsequently, an external steelfraime that tied back into the originalconcreteframe was addedto the hotel. hI short, the investment - or moreprecisely, the collateral- was
protected.
All of the key decisions were made in the private sector. This case provides an importantperspectiveon
how the insuranceindustry, banks, andotherfinaiicial institutionsand the building andreal estate
communities could work together to fosterseismic
rehabilitationwith or without governmentalparticipation.

Case 3. The PG&E Buildings, San Francisco

In the late 1980s, Salt Lake Cityfracedthe problem of

what to do about its earthquake-vulnerablebut historicallyandarchitecturallyvaluableAdministration
Buildingg The decision was made to seismicallyrehabilitateit usinga "base isolation' method. The
rehabilitationwas undertaken voluntarily andpaid
for by the city to protecta major asset and to serve
as an example ofgovernment leadershipandresponsibility in seismic safety.

The PacificGas andElectric Company (PG&E)is

headquarteredin San Franciscoand has a long and
colorful history in "The City. ' At an approximate
total cost of$150 million, PG&Echose to seismically rehabilitatea complex offour of its older office
buildingspartly using the benefits of the Preservation Tax Incentivesfor HistoricBuildings. The
rehabilitationwas reviewed by the CaliforniaState
Office ofHistoricPreservationandthe National
ParkService andcertifiedas meeting the Secretary
ofthe Interior'sStandardsfor Rehabilitation,thus
earninga 20 percent investment tax credit (approximately $30 million).
The motives werefour: to remain in the city, to save
landmarkstructuresfacing thefamous Market Street,
to protectPG&Eemployees, -andto set an example
in the community ofa voluntary business commitment to earthquakesafety in general andto seismic
rehabilitationspeciffically. The detailsof this case
areespecially interesting.According to representatives ofPG&E'sstructuralengineeringconsultants
(JokerstandElsesser, EER, 1995):

Case 2: The North Charleston Hotel

A major hotel chainfaced an interestingproblem
after constructinganew hotel in the city ofNorth
Charleston, South Carolina.At the time of construction, North Charlestonhadno specific earthquakeresistancerequirementsin its buildingcode, in large
measure because the state did not have (and as of
May 9 '6 still didnot have) a buildingcode.

The complex offour pacific Gas andElectric Co.

Office Buildings in downtown San Francisco built
from 1921 to 1949 representa variety ofmultistory construction rangingfrom 9 stories to 18
storiesandencompass over 500,000 squarefeet of
floorarea. These buildings arepartofan essential
complexfor thepublic utility which provides naturalgas and electricity to Northern Califfornia.
After the 1989 Loma Prietaearthquake, which
causedlimiteddamage to the buildings, PG&E
determinedthat a seismic upgradeofthesefour old

After cc nstruction of the hotel, however, a national

insurancecompany would not -acceptthe mortgage
because it had evaluatedregionalseismic risk
(hardlya secret given the 1886 event) andnotedthe
lack of an appropriateseismic component in the
originaldesign ofthe building. The insurancecompany then commissioneda San Franciscoengineeringfirm to recommend a rehabilitationplan that
would meet the company's earthquakeperformance

13

Chapter3

steelframe buildings wasjustifiedto meet the corporategoal ofbeing operationalafter a strong

earthquake.

however, in the end, the company chose to construct

a new buildingwith appropriateseismic design in
the downtown area because all things considered,
constructinga new building was actuallyless costly
than rehabilitatingthe oldone. If, as in this case,
the totalprojectcost outweighs that of constructinga
new building, seismic rehabilitationmost likely will
not be occur.

Ten seismic strengthening options were studiedfor

the two primary 18-story L-shapedbuildingsforming the center ofthe complex. Each alternatewas
evaluated to determine its impacton (1) interior
spaceplanning, (2) historicfeatures, (3) dynamic
response, (4) capacity ofexistingfoundation, (5)
existingframe capacity to support the increased
seismic loads, (6) pounding between the adjacent
structures, and (7) lateraldrifts.

The Informal/Encouragement Program

Like the voluntary approach, the "Informal/Encouragement Program" is more common than is often appreciated. Although not commonly acknowledged, building officials often try to reach agreement with owners involved in building rehabilitation.
Such negotiations can be based on authority granted
by local ordinance or can be conducted as part of a
building official's administrative responsibilities.
This is because each building "has its own story."

The PG&E complex demonstrates aperformancebasedapproach to design which goes beyond the
simple code-basedlife safety methods. Thisproject
addressesthe desire by Pacific Gas and Electric
Companyfor afacilitywhich will serve the public
after the next damagingearthquake.

Case 4: A MissouriSchool District

A specialversion of the "Voluntary Program" is exemplifiedby officials ofthe School DistrictofClayton, Missouri. Partofthe greaterSt. Louis area, the
Districtneededa voter-approved$6.6 million bond
issue tofinance new or replacement construction
anda rangeofschool improvements. These officials
recognizedthe earthquake threatin the New Madrid
areabut understoodequally well that the public
threatperception was low. By ' packaging"seismic
considerationsas one of thefive "compellingand
immediate needs" inside an overall bondargument,
however, the Clayton School Districtwon the bond
election andwas able to carry out nearly $3 million
ofseismic rehabilitationprojects "by strengthening
portions of existing schools."

A former midwestern city building official commented that "in contrast to new construction, negotiation is a way of life in dealing with existing buildings, and the architect/engineer/owner could walk
away from negotiation or use a board of appeals process." This approach involves a building official negotiating seismic considerations into an owner's request for permits to remodel an existing structure. In
this case, an owner requests permits to do various
kinds of work on a structure, and a local building
official says in effect, "Okay, but you also have to
include some seismic rehabilitation measures as
well." Four example cases are presented below.
Case 6: Provo, Utah
The city ofProvo, which like all other cities in Utah
sits along the Wasatch Fault, achieves seismic rehabilitationofexisting buildingsby negotiation with
building owners. No mandatoryrequirementsexist
to requirethe seismic rehabilitationof URMbuildings. The buildingdepartment applies its negotiated
informal approachonly when a significantimprovement or change occurs to one ofthese buildings,
most of which are locatedin the older centralbusiness district anddatefrom the late 1800s.

Case 5: Memphis, Tennessee

The firstfourcases andthe descriptionof the Voluntary Model tend to biasperceptionin thatonly "success " storiesare told. As apartialbalance to this
somewhat excessive optimism, considerthe story ofa
major automobilepartsandaccessories chain with
headquartersin Memphis that evaluatedits present
location in a structuredesignedoriginally as a department store. Seismic performance was explicitly
included in the overallrehabilitationevaluation;

14

Seismic Rehabilitationin Context

3403.3 Impracticalty. in cases where total compliance with all the requirements ofthis code is impractical, the applicantmay arrangeapre-designconference with the design team andthe building officiaL
The applicantshall identify design solutions andmodifications thatconform to Section 104.14. The building official may waive specific requirementsin this
code which he/she has determinedto be impractical.

The standardforURM buildingstrengtheningin

such cases is the current Uniorm Code ofBuilding

Conservation (UCBC), Appendix Chapter1. Example alterationsthat affect structuralelements or increase loads include addingto a mezzanine or
changinguses thatwould increasefloor live loads.
When an agreement is reachedbetween the building
official and the owner on the scope of the seismic
rehabilitationeffort, the official issues the permit.
In recentyears, however, none ofthe subject buildings has hadany alterationsproposed that would
triggerdiscussionsabout seismic rehabilitation. It is
possible that once an owner becomes aware thatthe
city might requireseismic strengthening, the scope of
theproposedproject is changedto avoid such work
or, in some cases, the project is canceled. In some
cases, it may be that the requirementsfor seismic
rehabilitation,albeitnegotiatedinformally, are sufficient to deter some signjficantproperty improvements in the area.
It is interestingto note that in 1995 Provo's building
departmentproposeda mandatoryparapetbracing
requirement. Principallybecause of cost concerns,
the proposalnever gotfar enough along in the policy
processto reach the city council. Interestingly, the
council has ratherdeftly stayed on the sidelines in
discussionsrelatedto buildingcodes. It generally
defines code issuesas "technical" ratherthan more
broadlypolitical, thus containingthe debates within
a relativelynarrowcircle of building officials and
otherstakeholders and interestedindividuals.

Section 104.14 states that an "alternate'may be approved by the building official if heshefinds that it
"complies with the provisions ofthis code and that
the alternative, when consideredwith other safety

features of the building or otherrelevantcircumstances, will provide at leastan equivalent level of

strength, effectiveness, fire resistance, durability,
safety andsanitation."

Case8: PaloAlto, California

Home to Stanford University and many high technoloy companies, the 55,000-person city ofPaloAlto
recognizedits earthquake-vulnerablebuildings

problem and has taken a unique approachto seismically rehabilitatingthese buildings. After a lengthy
explorationand negotiationprocess, the city adopted
a "Seismic HazardIdentificationProgram." It does
notfall neatly into anyprogramcategory but mostly
resembles the "informnal/EncouragementProgram"
because some of theprogram'selements -aremandatory while others are voluntary andincentive oriented.
PaloAlto 's efforts to deal with its vulnerable buildings datefrom the mid-1970s, but it -wasthe 1983
Coalingaearthquakethat led to the creation ofa
Seismic HazardCommittee trepresentinga diversity
of interests" (stakeholders,), which ultimately agreed
upon the scope ofthe existingprogram. The key elements ofPaloAIto's programare:

Nevertheless, some progressis occurring. in addi-

tion to URM buildings, when improvements or additions aremade to woodframe buildings, the city
looks for evidence that the wall sillplates areanchoredto thefoundation or slab. If these connections do not exist or are less than the code required
minimum, the city requiresnew anchors(sill holts) to
he installedas a condition of thepermit.

* It imposes rehabilitationrequirementson 99
structuresin three categories (all URM buildings,

allpre-1935 non-/UEMbuildingswith 100 or

more occupants, andall buildings with 300 or
more occupants constructedbetween January1,
1935, andAugust 1976).

Case 7: Seattle, Washington

When a building undergoessubstantialremodeling
in Seattle, seismic rehabilitationis mandated. The
extent of the improvement in its seismicperformance
can be negotiated, however, under thefollowing
1995 revision to the Seattle Building Code:

15

Once notified by the city, the buildings' owners

,arerequiredto contractwith a structuralengineer. Given a specif.ed time periodin which to

Chapter3

conduct a study andfile a report with the city, the

owners'engineershave to evaluate the earthquake vulnerability ofthe buildingandto identify
what should be done structurallyso that the
building will meet the seismicprovisions of the
1973 Uniform BuildingCode (UBC). The reports
are reviewedby consultingengineers to ensure
they comply with the ordinance.
* Each building owner must notify the occupants in
writingthat an engineeringreport has been completed and that the report is availablefor review
in the city's Building Inspection Division.
Within one year afterfiling the engineering report, each building owner also must submit a letter indicatinghis/her intentionsregardingcorrection ofseismic deficiencies. Failureto comply
could result in injunctive relief,criminalprosecution, or both.
The underlyingpolicyphilosophy was that "while no
mandatory retrofitting(rehabilitation)requirement
was imposed. . . the reportingrequirementswould
create sufficient concerns about liabilityandabout
the decline in the market value of earthquake-deficient structures, thatseismic improvements would
occur voluntarily" (Beatley Berke, pp. 63-64).
Some clues are availableabout the implementation
of theprogram:
A downtown density andparking incentive are
providedforseismically rehabilitatedbuildings.
Bonuses aregiven for the buildings in the three
categoriesthat exempt themfrom providingonsite parkingas a condition ofrehabilitation.

pleted This protects the owners'abilities to service their debts.

Some innovative developers havefound ways to
capitalize on the seismic rehabilitationprogram
by publicizingthe work done, taking advantageof
the greatersquarefoot allowancesprovidedunder theparkingincentive measure, andeven trying to obtain the bonusfor buildingsnot in the
three covered categories.
* Earlyfears that owners would be unable to continue to insure theirgovernedpropertiesfor liability are not being borne out. Increasesin rates,
however, are apossibility.
* The private owners are carryingthe direct costs
ofthe program'sreports andseismic rehabilitation improvements.
An interestingsidebar to PaloAlto's program that
may have reinforcedprivateowners' willingness to
acceptthe ordinancewas that the city voluntarily
seismically rehabilitatedits Civic Center building.
This structure was constructedbetween 1968 and
1970 andis an eight-story tower supportedby a
three-story below-gradeparkingstructure. The project was financedby "CertificatesofParticipation,"
andthe work was done in slightly more than two
years "while the building was occupiedand infull
operation" (Sharpep. 1).
Case9: San Leandro, California
The 15 square mile Alameda County city ofSan
Leandro borders Oaklandon the north andis a
mixed residential, commercial, andindustrialareaof
about 70,000 mostly middle-income residents. The
easternpart ofSan Leandro spans the active HaywardFault. San Leandrohas dozens of URMbuildings, thousandsof older wood-frame dwellings, modern apartmentstructures, and tilt-up light industrial
buildings along the San FranciscoBay's shoreline,
all of which are earthquake-vulnerable.

Compliance with the reportingrequirements has

been good - virtually I00 percent.
* The reportsandpublic disclosure requirementsreinforcedby California'sreal estate disclosure
laws on propertysales andpurchases- act as
strong incentives and a number ofseismic upgrades have been completed
* Some tenants in leasedbuildings have helpedfinance the seismic upgrades through lump-sum
payments or higher lease costs, andothers have
agreedto vacate before and returnto the building
after the seismic rehabilitationproject is com-

The city's earthquakesafety efforts - triggeredby

the recommendationsof a citizen taskforce - demonstratean interestingvoluntary government-citizen
partnership. Known as the "1993 Seismic Retrofit
FinancingProject," the city council approvedraising $12,780,000 through "CertificatesofParticipa-

16

Seismic Rehabilitationin Context

lion " to seismically strengthen severalmunicipal

buildings. The buildings includedrehabilitatingthe
1965 City Hall, the 1970 South Office Building, and
the 1968 PublicSafety Building, which houses San
Leandro sfire andpolicedepartments and their
communications and dispatchingcenters.
In addition, the city has supportedseismic rehabilitation by its residents. Partof an annual$300,000
earthquakepreparednessappropriation(which includesfederalmitigation grantfulds)assists residents with the strengtheningoftheir homes. Detailed easy-to-understandinstructionsareprovided
to owners by the buildingdepartment; classes are
providedby qualified engineers;tools are loaned to
property owners; the work is inspected atno charge;
andthe propertyowner receives certificationthat the
buildinghas been strengthened to the city's standards.
In general, the 'Informal/EncouragementProgram"
would have to be marked as mredium-conflict ("5 or
"6" on the escalation ladder) because, no matter
how informally the seismic requirementsareleveraged in, it is aform of government mandate to have
seismic rehabilitationincluded as a "must be "part
ofan overallpermitprocess. Under this model, a
buildingdepartmentis obviously proactive, not passive, but in a selective manner.
In practice, when ajurisdictionemploys this approach,buildingowners tend to complain thatthe
city buildingdepartment is being "unreasonable."
While probablyrare, attempts at politicalend-runs
to a city council, mayor, orcity managercould be
made to test the resolve ofthe buildingdepartment
- and its politicalsupport. Seattle's experience is
that almost no appealshave gone to its mayor or
council. Th7is is because its seisumnic rehabilitation
triggers (when is rehabilitationrequired) are specified in ordinanceseven though the extent ofthe rehabilitationwork involved is negotiated. In general, it
is both clear andprudentthat building departments
have some referencestandard, such as the UCBC or
formally adoptedordinances, to avoid thepotential
nightmare -ofinconsistent and capriciousrequirements being imposed. At the same time, however,
formal rehabilitationordinancesare not required,
neitherthe media nor the courts tend to be involved,
andthe political conflict generatedremains con-

17

tamiedwithin afairlysmall circle ofofficials, own.ers,and engineers. In other words, seismic rehabilitation does not become an explosive public issue,
-whichis often the case with the upperend inhabitant
of the escalationladder,the "MandatoryProgram
Mffodel. " Finally, owners may abandon theirprojects or redefine them to avoidtriggeringeven informal requirements. A4 common way ofdo ig this is to
perform a series ofsmallerprojects that do not triggerseismic rehabilitationbut that collectively result
in a major alteration.

The Mandatory Program

As indicated above, the "Mandatory Program" is definitely high-conflict and rates a kind of general "9"
on the ladder, but it could range anywhere from "8"
to "10. " For example, if the number of buildings targeted in a jurisdiction is relatively small and if the
required rehabilitation is at least partially subsidized
(e.g.. through a redevelopment project), the score
could be an "S." On the other hand, if, as in the famous Los Angeles case, thousands of buildings are
involved and no external financing is offered, the
program can - and did - reach a "10" on the conflict ladder. In essence, mandatory seismic rehabilitation programs are full blown public policy. As
such. formal ordinances stipulate priorities, criteria,
processes, choices, rules, coercive measures, timetables, and even appeal processes. Moreover, given
the very public nature of the decision-making, the
process is long, arduous, and very political.
Not only does a "Mandatory Program" debate entail
extended technical arguments. it also gives at least
equal time to the direct cost question (how much for
what level of safety), the cost incidence question
(who pays initially but who pays in the end), and the
indirect cost considerations (differential impacts on
marginal populations, personal disruption, neighborhood effects). Battles also are joined on scope (what
buildings), priorities (which buildings first and why),
and pace (how fast). Most important, a mandatory
program stimulates the creation of what once were
called "interest groups" but now are more accurately
referred to as "advocacy coalitions" or "stakeholders," each, having its agenda or special focus. As
a result, the media and the courts become involved,
often sooner rather than later.

Chapter3

In the "Mandatory Program," seismic rehabilitation is

imposed coercively on building owners by government, and most of the politics revolves around
attempts by the owners to minimize the scope and
requirements of seismic rehabilitation and, therefore,
the costs. Owners then attempt to externalize (shift
to others) those costs to the greatest degree possible.
The decision arena is usually a city council, and mandatory programs tend to involve not only the elected
officials but also numerous individuals and groups
including building owners, tenants, building safety
officials, professional engineers, historic building
advocates, neighborhood organizations, and even
representatives of other levels of government. The
"pro" and "con" sides (advocacy coalitions) become
very complex. In a discussion separate from his
book with Alesch, Petak offers a summary ofthe
kinds of actors involved in the development and passage of the hazardous structure abatement ordinances
in Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Santa Ana (see
Figure 2).
In addition to its own intrinsic conflicts, any proposal
for a formal seismic rehabilitation program must face
"extrinsic" challenges. That is, aside from all the
internal debates, seismic rehabilitation using the
mandatory approach must compete with other community priorities for scarce public funds, even if only
for enforcement costs. These costs should not be
underestimated in that they often entail new responsibilities for a building and safety department and very
likely for the city attorney's office and planning and
housing departments in larger cities.
Case 10: Long Beach

It Led The Way

As a result ofthe major earthquake of 1933 which

bears its name, the city ofLong Beach amendedits
buildingcode in January1934 to effectively prohibit
anyfuture construction ofunreinforcedmasonry
buildings, hundreds ofwhich suffered seriousdamage in the earthquake. This policy was extended
statewide by the Riley Act, which was passedin 1934
by California'sLegislature.

controversy topush throughan ordinancegiving the

buildingdepartmentthe authority to "determine by
inspection if an existing building is substandardor
constitutes a nuisance"and, if so, to orderthe building repaired, vacated, or demolished. Once a 1966
CaliforniaSupreme Courtdecision (City ofBakersfield v. Milton Miller) clearedthe way by determining that it was unreasonableto hold cities hostage to
old buildingsgiven "thefact that a buildingwas constructed in accordancewith existing statutes [at the
time of its construction]does not immunize itfrom
subsequent abatement as apublic nuisance,"
O'Connorattemptedto implement the originalLong
Beach ordinance. A politicaluproarensued, and
while the URMproblem was "studied"at length, effective implementation of the ordinancewas tabled,
but it at least hadgone through theformal hearings
process.
Major damage to URMs in the 1971 San Fernando
earthquakerekindledLong Beach's interestin its
URMproblem and on June 29, 1971, the Long
Beach City Councilpasseda specific ordinanceto
abate the hazardposed by earthquake-vulnerable
structures in the city. Implementation was slowed by
complexities in the ordinancesuch as the assignment
of "hazardpoints, " which was confusing to the owners. O'Connorarguedthat it was very difficult to
enforce an ordinancewith multiple choices. In
1976, an amendment establisheda more formal but
simplerprogramwith criteriafor a building-bybuilding "hazardindex" andwith timetablesfor surveys, notifications, evaluations, andabatement.
Eventually, almost 900pre-1934 masonry, concrete,
or steel buildingswere eitherseismically rehabilitated or demolished. Thus, while Los Angeles may
be morefamous, its neighbor, the City ofLong
Beach, led the way.

Case11: Los Angeles -

The Most Famous

Although "guilty knowledge" about the earthquake

vulnerability of URM buildings hadexistedfor several decades (at least since the 1933 Long Beach
event) andalthough the city of Long Beach itselfhad
been working on the earthquake-vulnerablebuilding
problem since 1959, it took the devastatinglyconcentrated life loss of the 1971 San Fernandoevent (47
of the 54fatalitiestook place in portionsofthe

Nothing was done about existing URM buildings in

Long Beach until 1959 when a true hero of local efforts at seismic safety, building official Ed
O'Connor, took advantage ofa theaterrelicensing

18

DECISION MAKERS

PROPERTY OWNERS & TENANTS OF

UNREINFORCED MASONRY BUILDINGS

Mayor and City Council Members

State Governor & Legislature
Stale Seismic Safety Commission
State Office of Emergency Services
State and Federal Supreme Courts
Federal Funding Agents

Residential Homeowners &Tenants

Absentee Owners of Dwellings or Business Units
Small Businessmen who Own or Rent
Large Business Owners who Own or Operate
Businesses/Corporations
,...................

.......................................................

SEISMIC RISK
FROM

UNREINFORCED MASONRY
.

STRUCTURES
.....................................
.........................

THIRD PARTIES
City Building and Safety Departments
City Planning Departments
City Attorney

Professional Engineers &Architects

University Researchers
Professional Consultants
Banks and Real Estate Firms
Politicians who Represent the Citizens
Inthe Risk Areas
The Citizenry - at - Large

Apartment Owner Associations

Theater Owner Associations
Community Interest Groups

Residents/Owners Adjacent to
Hazardous Buildings
Service Workers in Buildings
Historical & Conservation Associations
Tax Officials
Friends & Relatives of the Property
Owners/Tenants

FI'
S
0'

S:

Figure 2 A sampling of parties concerned with city seismic regulation development

(from W. JI Petak).

El

::l
!i'
U

Zs

Chapter3

FIGURE 3
Advantages and Disadvantages of Major Types of Mitigation Programs
for Unreinforced Masonry Buildings
ProgramDescription

Advantages

Disadvantages

Mandatory Strengthening Programs

* Requires owners to reduce earthquake
hazards within established time frames
a Timeframes for compliance start when
an order is issued by the Building Department
* Establishes seismic retrofit technical
standards
* Sets a goal of hazard reduction, not
total elimination of the hazards

* Local governments can effectively enforce the program and reduce hazards
* Building departments can monitor and
report progress
* Building departments can control compliance rates by slowing down or
speeding up the issuance of orders to
building owners
* Compliance rates vary with the number
of building occupants, with longer time
frames for smaller buildings

* Imposes arbitrary and at times inflexible deadlines on building owners

* Compliance schedules do not necessarily reflect the limits of the local design
and construction industry resources
* Can impose economic hardships on
owners and occupants
* Compliance schedules do not consider
hazards to passersby or hazards from
adjacent or unoccupied buildings.

Voluntary Strengthening Programs

* Requires owners to prepare hazard
evaluation reports
* Requires owners to write letters that
indicate their intentions to reduce hazards
* Reports and letters are made available
to the public
* Establishes seismic retrofit technical
standards
* Owners set their own time frames for
compliance with standards

* Provides effective disclosure of hazards to owners and in some cases to

tenants
* Flexible time frames for compliance
can result in fewer economic difficulties
* Rates of hazard reduction can vary
depending on owner's resources and
demands on the design and construction industry
* Provides an effective management and
monitoring system to local governments
* Local governments can always reconsider the program's progress and impose mandatory requirements if it is
ineffective.

* Effective in reducing hazards only if

coupled with strong economic environments, and financial, planning, and
zoning incentives
* Not effective with owners who choose
not to cooperate, and thus can be unfair to cooperative owners
* May prolong overall hazard reduction
efforts and earthquake risk exposure
* Owners must pay higher fees to design
professionals
* Does not consider hazards for occupants and passersby or from adjacent
buildings

Notification-Only Programs
* Owners are notified by letter that their
buildings are potentially hazardous

* Some local governments state that it

meets the minimum intent of the URM
Law
* Minimal initial cost to local governments
* No direct cost to owners who choose
to ignore hazards
* Can be effective if owners are few and
cooperative and if governments adopt
seismic retrofit standards

20

* Programs have been ineffective in reducing earthquake hazards

* Owners are not protected from future
code changes if they choose to reduce
hazards
* Owners are not encouraged to consider
hazard reduction
* Owners are not informed of specific
hazards and are likely to react with
disbelief
* Local government can't easily monitor
hazard reduction progress
* Imposes demands on local governments to deal with unhappy owners
* Seismic retrofit standards are typically
not adopted

Seismic Rehabilitationin Context

Veterans Administrationhospital built in 1925) to

force open a political window ofopportunityfor seismrc rehabilitationin Los Angeles in February1973.
The scale was daunting- the estimate was that the

city had 14,000 earthquake-vulnerablebuildings. A

key actor once described theproblem as: "How do
you eat an elephant? Well, one bite at a time."
Befitting the "MandatoryProgram" model, debate
over various versionsof the hazardousstructure
abatementordinancebecame very contentious very
rapidly with buildingowners mounting strong attacks againsteach draft. Alesch andPetak (7986, p.
62) quote a leader of agroup of apartmentowners
who capturedalmost all (he missed historicpreservation) of the principalobjections in a single diatribe:
The proposedordinanceis a direct attack on the poor
on senior citizens... on every tenant in the crit. .

---

- makes

it impossiblefor the owners ofand investors

in the older buildings to comply with it... wouldput

tremendous upwardpressureon rents in the city ...

create unimaginablevater unrest...

After three years of comflict, the Los Angeles city

Councilsenta draft ordinanceback to committeefor
fwuther study in Decemnber 1976.
Advocatesfor an ordinanceregroupedandfound a
city councilman ffrom the areaQ most daimaged by the
1971 San Fernandoevent) who took the public and

politicallead andguidedthe next version ofthe ordinance, which would hecome Division 88 ofthe
Buildicgand Safety Code, througha continuously
acrimoniousprocess to finalpassage on January 7,

1981. Almosteight years elapsed betweenplacement

of the earthquake-vulnerablebuildingsproblem on
the political agendain Los Angeles andfinalpassage of the ordinance.

Case 12: State of CaliforniaSenate Bill 547 (and

SenateBill 44)
In June 1986, the Governor of California signed into
law Senate Bill (SB) 547. This law require cities and
counties in Seismic Zone 4 (which included approximately 80 percent of California's population) to inventory their URM buildings and, by January 1,
1990, to establish programs to mitigate the hazards
they posed. For many jurisdictions, the results of the
inventories were an unpleasant surprise and constituted the first solid information they had on the extent of their URM building problem. Because of SB

21

547, many jurisdictions suddenly had "guilty knowledge" about earthquake-vulnerable URM structures
in their building stocks.
While SB 547 did not specify precisely what mitigation programs had to be put in place by the local
jurisdictions, in 1991 the California Seismic Safety
Commission (CSSC) identified the four types that
had evolved: mandatory strengthening, voluntary
strengthening, notification only. and "others." Not
surprisingly, the CSSC preferred the mandatory approach, saw advantages in the voluntary program, but
had serious reservations about the "notification only"
program. The "others" were too varied to cover easily. The CSSC then outlined the advantages and disadvantages as they saw them of the three major types
of URM mitigation programs (Figure 3).
Although enacted seven years earlier than SB 547,
another law, SB 445, should be mentioned. SB 445
allo-wed local governments in California to adopt
standards for seismic rehabilitation of URM buildings that were lower than the standards for new construction. SB 445 had a dual effect: It reduced estimates of the rehabilitation costs for URM buildings
(because repair could be to a lower standard) but,
more important, it removed local government concern about legal liability for having different standards for rehabilitation of existing buildings and new
construction.
Case 13: Seattle-ChangingFocus andLocal
Policy
The city ofSeattle's experience illustrateshow the
failure ofa mandatory retrofit ordinanceled to the
currentnegotiatedmethodology. In essence andfor
a variety of reasons, Seattle'spolicy movedfom a
focus on one -area(the historic "PioneerSquare') to
all business districts whereparapetsare common
hazardsandfinally to a triggeredmandatory requirementthat applies to all existingbuildings but
that allowsfor negotiation ofthe level ofstructural
improvemntemt on a case-by-case basis.

Chapter3

"PioneerSquare" is a 15-square-blockareaadjacent
to Seattle's centralbusiness district. Its buildings
(largely URM) were constructedat the turn ofthe
century. Itprovides an example ofthe difficult-toimplement mandatory rehabilitationpolicyfor a specific district. In 1973, ordinanceswere passedthat
appliedsolely to the PioneerSquare HistoricDistrict. They specifiedminimum maintenance requirements andalso requiredrehabilitationofthe URM
buildings(to ensure thatall structuralmembers
could "carry imposedloads with safety" andprevent
any portion ofthe exteriorfrom falling in an earthquake). "Substandardhistoricbuilding"notices
were sent out, and by May 1977 only 18 out of 143
buildings hadbeen partiallyrehabilitatedbuildings
rehabilitation. Furtherachievingthe necessary
increasedrents to payfor the improvements was
often unrealistic. Lengthy hearingswere required
before the buildingdepartment couldtake enforcement action and, as a result, the rehabilitationrequirementswere repealedandstrengthening
requirementswere triggeredonly if a buildingwas to
be substantiallyremodeled
In November 1975, a large section ofterracotta cornice tilefell from a multistory buildingonto a sidewalk near the downtown retailcore. This event initiatedaformal inspection and notificationprogram
for Seattle's centralbusiness district, in particular
the entire downtown core. This wasfollowed by
adding new language to the 1977 Seattle Building
Code that specifically requiredabatementof "unsafe
buildingappendages"like URMparapets. An inspector/engineerwas assignedto try to identify all
such hazardousparapets (many ofwhich were in
PioneerSquare). Most of the hazardousparapetsin
the downtown area (including PioneerSquare) had
theirparapetsbraced This ordinanceis still used
on URM buildings outside ofthe downtown area
Thus, the mandatory requirementforthe "global"
(although '~partial"in currentengineeringterms)
rehabilitationof URMbuildingsfailed, but a very
modest mandatoryrequirementforstrengthening
one of the URM buildings'most widely recognized
hazards (parapets)has been very successful.
A useful andsuccessful example ofseismic rehabilitationpoliciesis Seattle's currentone that applies to
all existing buildings. When an existing building

undergoesa "substantialremodel" (remodelingthat

extends its "usefulphysicaland economic life"), its
seismic risks must be mitigated This trigger (and
there are a couple oflessfrequent ones) is codified,
not negotiated There is usually a pre-designmeeting with the owner, the engineer, andspecialized
building departmentstaff. At this meeting, the level
ofstructuralimprovements is negotiated, the goal
beingto ensure that the degree of improvement is
"commensurate with the size andscope of theproposedproject." Thus, the rehabilitationis mandatory (as triggeredby aproposedremodel), but the
level ofstructuralimprovement variesfrom case to
case. This has been very successfulfor many years,
anda wide variety of office, retail, light manufacturing, andresidential(includinglow income) buildings
have been rehabilitated.

Case 14: San Francisco's "Bolts-Plus" Partial

Rehabilitation for Unreinforced Masonry Buildings
Passageof California'sURM law in 1986 (Chapter
12.2, Section 8875 et. seq., "Building Earthquake
Safety" ofthe Health andSafety Code) accelerated
localgovernment considerationofthe URMproblem. In San Francisco, thisprocess ultimately resulted in the passage ofSan Francisco'sOrdinance
225-92, on July 13, 1992, "relatingto earthquake
hazardreduction in unreinforcedmasonry bearing
wall buildings." With the avowedprimarysocial
purpose ofpreservinglow-cost housing, the ordinance has lower safety standardsthan the stateadoptedmodel code (discussed below) when applied
to normally configuredresidentialoccupancy buildings. Ordinance 225-92 allows residentialand certain commercial use unreinforcedmasonry buildings
(UMB in San Franciscoterminology) to be rehabilitated using a "bolts-plus" solution ("the installation
ofshear and tension anchors at the roofandfloors
and, when required, the bracingofthe UMB walls
upon evaluationofthe height-to-thickness ratio of
these walls, Section 1603B1. 1). This method cannot
be usedfor buildingshousing assembly, educational,
or hazardous occupanciesas defined in the building
code.
The process ofestablishingthe technical basisfor
Ordinance225-92 is worth some discussion. As
noted above, the state's URM law requiredlocal
M

22

Seismic Rehabilitationin Context

governments in Seismic HazardZone 4 to identify

(inventory) the quantity of URI buildingsin their
jurisdictions,topreparea plan to mitigate the hazards, andtofile a report-ontheir actions with the
CaliforniaSeismic Safety Commission (CSSC. San
Franciscoidentified L,967 masonry bearingwall
buildings. (Approximately another 120nonbearing
wall URMbuildings also have been identfled by San
Francisco, but they are outside the scope of its retrofit ordinance.)
In late 1988, San Franciscoofficials asked the StructuralEngineers ofNorthern California(SEAoNC) to
develop guidelines that could be used to preparea
city ordinance. SEAoNC ppointedan adhoc committee for this purpose. About the same time, the
CSSC asked the counterpartstatewide organization,

the StructuralEngineersAssociation ofCalifornia

(SEA oQ, and the CaliforniaBuilding Officials
(CALB0) to help the Commission update its model
ordinancefocusingon bearingwall URMbuildings.
Firstpublishedin 1985, the originalbasis of the
model ordinancewas Los Angeles' Building Code
Division 88. The model was revised in 1990, 1991,
and 1995. It is known now as the "1995
Recommended Model Ordinancefor the Seismic Retrofit of Hazardous UnreinforcedMasonry Bearing

Wall Buildings."
PartofSEA oC's and CALBO's response to the CSSC

proach,strong opposition camefrom UMB property

owners, especially those in lower income, rental
rate, andproperty value areas of San Francisco.
This led to two imp ortantstudies - an enlvironmzental (and economic) impact reportand benefit-cost
analyses of UMB rehabilitationalternatives. These
reports were used by a largely nontechnicaltask
force (discussedbelow) tofashion apoliticallyacceptable compromise. The SEAoNCs ad hoc conmmittee recommended that San Franciscoadopt California's new model code.
The opposition to the UC'BC approachled the Board
ofSupervisors andthe Mayor ofSan Franciscoto
form a two-part taskforce to review the SIHSAC's
recommendations. The taskforce, composed of
representativesof several city departments andother
organizations(assistedby a 40+ member Comnmunity Advisory Committee) recommended allouiingthe
"holts-plus" -approachbecause, at leastfor normally
configuredbuildings, this wouldprevent 80 percent
ofthe URMbuildingearthquakelife-safety problem
(out-of-plane failure of the bearingwalls). Ultimately, this became thepoliticalsellingpoint ofOrdinance 225-92. Ironically, however, some engineers believe that only a smallpercentage ofall
the inventoriedunreinforcedmasonry buildingasare
actually eligiblefor "bolts-plus " rehabilitation.
The Loma Prietaearthquake on October 17, 1989,
acceleratedthe process of enactingthe UCBC 4as a
state model code (not necessarilya minimum) for
rehabilitatingURM buildings (Chapter173 ofthe
1991 Statutes, which amendedseveral individual
state -codesections). Meanwhile, the SEAoN.C used
Loma Prieta's "window of opportunity"to get some
significant limits on the use .of "holts-plus" inserted
into San Francisco' pendingOrdinance225-92.
Forexample, the "bolts-plus" rehabilitationmethod
cannot be usedon a URM building unless it has a
regularconfiguration, has qualifying cross walls,
and has a specifled minimum areaofsolid URM
wall.

wsas to convert the technicalprovisions ofthe model

ordinanceinto aformatacceptable to the International Conference ofBuilding Officials (ICBO) for
use in allseismic zones. The technicalprovisions of

the revisedmodel ordinancebecame Appendix

ChapterI to the 1991 edition ofthe Unform Code
for BuildingConservation(VtCBQ, a companion
document to the Uniform Building Code (UBC). The
administrativeprovisions of the model ordinanceare
not includedin the UCBC. In 1991, the State ofCalifornia adoptedthe UCBCsAppendix Chapter1 as
a model code.
The issue was referredto an advisory committee, the
Seismic Investigation andHazardsSurvey Advisory

One participantin thisprocess noted that Ordinance

225-92 was "totally driven by socioeconomic issues."
Ordinance225-92 states: "UAMis arevital to San
Franciscos economy. They provide low-cost housing, job sites, andirreplaceablehistoricand architecturalresources. Yet, in an earthquake,theypose

Committee (SIHSAC), which was establishedabout

1980. In addition to engineers andarchitects, it was
composed of contractors,real estate andlending
interests, andothers. While theSIHSACgenerally
agreedthat the UCBC was an appropriateap-

23

Chapter3

a greatdangerto passersbyandoccupants." UMB

structuresalso continue to expose low-cost housing
to a sudden andpermanentloss of habitabilityafter
moderate to major groundshaking even though their
risk to life is reduced.
Notices regardingcompliance and "inventoryforms"
were sent to the owners ofthe governed buildings.
Datesfor subsequent compliance with the
ordinance'srehabilitationprovisions were staggered
dependingon the perceivedrelative hazards ofa
building's location, size, andoccupancy. Compliance dates rangedfrom 3.5 to 13 years. If owners
do not comply within the specified time period, the
city'sfinal recourse is to condemn the buildingso it
cannot be used
With strongsupportfrom the BoardofSupervisors,
in 1992 San Franciscovoters overwhelmingly approved a GeneralObligationBond issue of $350
million "to help owners ofseismically unstable buildingsfinance retrofitting . . . " While requiredrehabilitation is under way, as of October 1996 little of
the money has been committed because: (1) commercial loans orprivatefinancing is available in a
healthier economy, (2) administrativerequirements
are too burdensome or addto the potentialcosts, (3)
some owners arepostponing work until "the lastpossible minute, " and (4) financingof some projects is
complicatedbecause of the need to integratethe
seismic rehabilitationfinancingwith other low-income housingfinancialandregulatorymeasures.

REHABILITATION POLICY CHOICES:

OTHER CASES

jected event, and economic feasibility. Thus, the

Guidelinesdocuments focus and, in a sense, "discipline" rehabilitation decisions and the selection of
target performance levels - from which then flow
specific design choices, engineering parameters, and
construction techniques.

Case 15: Santa Cruz, California

The city ofSanta Cruz was heavily damagedby the
1989 Loma Prietaearthquakeandfaceda variety of
reconstructionproblems. A former city planner in
Santa Cruz identified25 post-earthquakechallenges
to his community, afull 18 of which are directly relevant to issues often encounteredin the seismic rehabilitationofexisting buildingsforeseen by the Guidelines documents. Selected andslightly editedfor use
here, they are asfollows:
* The jurisdictionmay have to addnew administrative capacity (hire new staff), which involves both
hiringtime andlearningtime.
Economic necessity may requiremore than simply
rebuilding, especially when overlaidwith new requirementsfor safety in retrofit andnew construction. Retail trade may needto increase, andinfrastructure upgradesmay be required
* Planningto rebuildacceleratesattention to longstandingproblems and issues (some ofwhich will
continue toprove intractable). Examples include
defining appropriatelevels ofgrowth or economic
development, upgradingof old infrastructure,and
poorpoliticalenvironment (acrimonies, lack of
inclusive decision-makingprocesses).
* Rebuildingmay require shifts in politicaland/or
institutionalpatterns andhabits.

Central to the overall purpose of the Guidelines documents is the provision of a framework to help users
understand and then select desired levels of seismic
performance of buildings. As the user will note in
Volume 1 of the Guidelines, a user must select, for
every structure which is a candidate for rehabilitation, a specified level of desired performance. Historically, these types of decisions have been based on
preparatory technical studies or, more subjectively,
on the feasibility of the rehabilitation. In some cases,
the desired performance decisions drew upon an
agreed-upon assessment of risk, the existing capabilities of a building to withstand the motions of a pro-

Politicalimperatives might be at odds with what

makes sensefrom aplanningor administrativeperspective, which can make the decision-makingprocess complicatedand time-consuming.

* Special time andeffort may be requiredto set up

financialresources (tax measures, grantapplications, redevelopment districts). Worse, resources
may not be available.
* Decision-makingmay be delayed by the need to
obtain information on andlearn more about the

24

Seismic Rehabilitationin Context

context - especiallyfor seismic rehabilitation.After

a major damagingearthquake,financialsubsidies
for repairandrehabilitationmay suddenly become
available, emergency authoritiesmay be grantedand
exercised, andpopular andmediapressureto "do
something' may emerge - all of which createthe
positive contextfor action only dreamed of by seismic safety proponentspriorto the event.

regionaleconomic situation,financialoptions, development economics andpotentials, geologic conditions, construction anddesign issues, andlender
requirements.
* Politicalbattles can command the time and attention of key actors anddelay other decisions (e.g.,
historicpreservationfights over buildingsmay delay decisions about adjacentpropertiesand affect
politicaldiscussion ofother issues).

In sum, earthquakesshoot seismic safety straightto

the top of decision agendas, opening windows of opportunityfor major advances. The question, of
course, is how long those windows remain open before previoussocietal issues andproblemis regain
theirplaces on the agendaandnew ones emerge,
pushingseismic safety back down and startingthe
processall over again.

New politicalinterests may coalesce and need time

to organize (e.g., aproperty owners association
may become a necessity in an area where none existedpreviously).
* The localpoliticalsystem may have dfflculty
achieving agreementon key planning issues. Old
adversariesmay have tofind common growud.
Long-standinginterjurisdictionaldisputes may
have to be resolved.

Perhapsof most directimportancefor this discussion, damagingearthquakesmay allow ajurisdiction

-thathadbeen relying on simple attrition orfollowing
the lowest conflict model (voluwtary) to move more
aggressivelyon the earthquake-vulnerablebuildings
problem and utilize the "Inform~al/Encouragement
Program" orgo all the way to theformal "Mandatory Program."

Philosophicaldifferences may surface over the

'8properroles"of the privateandpublic sectors.
a

New roles emerge. Forexample, propertyowners

with no previous development experience suddenly
become developers or a city with a reactive/regulatory orientationtowarddevelopment my find
itseIfhaving to solicit, if not court, new development.

* The most heavily affected areasmay be the least

economically viable partsof the community.
* Shortcutsarefew. Legal andproceduralrequirements must be adheredto unless special legislation
is pursued.

Local economic conditionsat the time ofprogram

enactmentplay a majorrole in seismic rehabilitation. Forexample, Los Angeles' Chapter88 URM
ordinancewas passed in the "go-go" 1980s, a time
ofeconomic expansion and escalatingpropertyvalues, which made the financing ofseismic rehahilitation projects easier.

Case 16: Portlandandthe State of Oregon

* Jurisdictionsmay have to seek, sponsor, or lobby

for specialstate legislation.

In 1993, western Oregon changedfrom Seismic Zone

2B to Zone 3 in recognitionofnew information
about the risks ofa subduction earthquakeoff the
coast. This has had a significant impact on policies
relatingto existing buildings in that most ofthem
now can be considered "dangerousbuildings"because they were designed to a lower seismic standard.

Perceptionsof needs change, andplanningmay go

infits and starts.
* Organizingeffective citizenparticipationis essential but takes time andeffort.
*Displacedbusinesses andresidentsmust be accommodated while long-term solutions aresought.

In April 199S, the PortlandCity Councilpassedseveral ordinancesthat were developed by the Task
Forceon Seismic StrengtheningofExistingBuildings. These constituted an interimpolicy thatwas to

As this list makes clear,pre-earthquakeandpostearthquakeenvironments share many characteristics. The difference after a disaster,however, lies in
a radicallychangedlegal, regulatory, andpolitical

25

Chapter3

remain in effect untilMarch 1997. Thefirst ordinance took seismic loadingout ofthe definition of
dangerous buildings in the city's DangerousBuildings Code. Other ordinancesthen codifiedseveral
passive triggersthat requireseismic rehabilitationto
currentcode or the suggested standardin the
NEHRP Handbookfor the Seismic Evaluationof
Existing Buildings (FEMA 178), depending on the
trigger. Thefollowing is a briefsummary of the triggers.
a

Changes ofoccupancy (to a higherstandardbased

on UCBC ranking) andstructuraladditions (that
are not structurallyindependent) requirerehabilitation to the current code standards.

*Alterations to most buildings valued at more than

$100,000 requirea FEMA 178 evaluationof the
building. The datacollected in this manner are to
be used in developing thepolicies to be enacted
after this interimperiod

Case 17: The Federal Case

In the 1990 re-authorizinglegislationfor the National EarthquakeHazards Reduction Program
(NEHRP), Congress included a mandate thatthe
Presidentadopt "standardsfor assessingandenhancingthe seismic safety of existing buildings constructedfor or leased by thefederalgovernment. "
This one clause made the Executive Branchface the
same issues that conjiontedso many private-sector
buildingowners and local buildingofficials - performance levels, priorities,scheduling, triggermechanisms, funding, and others- but on a largerscale
ofcourse.
There was a very wide variance in cost estimates
because ofa lack of reliabledata. The solution was
therefore to adopt two parallelcourses:
* Seismic rehabilitationis requiredforowned or
leasedbuildings under a set ofprescribedconditions ("triggers') when the upgradingofa building
for otherreasons will cost more than 50percent of
its replacement value and

* Two types ofalterationto URM buildingsrequire

rehabilitationto the FEM4 178 standardreroofing (involving removal of the oldroofor repairto more than 50 percent ofthe deck) requires
anchorageofthe roofsystem to the exterior walls
andbracingofthe parapetsandalterationsin a 2yearperiodthat exceed $15 per squarefootfor the
total netfloor areatriggerrehabilitation.

In 1995, the State of OregonpassedSB 1057 which

createdthe Oregon Seismic RehabilitationTask
Force. The legislation directedthe taskforce to provide recommendationsto the legislaturefor its 1997
session. The taskforce has consideredmany of the
topics importantto anyjurisdictionconsideringseismic rehabilitationprograms includinginventory
data, mandatoryandpassive triggers, design standards, appeals, enforcement, liability, incentives, education and information, coordinationand reporting,
andneeded legislation.
The taskforcefiled its report on September 30, 1996.
Legislationto begin implementation of the report
was introducedin 1997 but itfailedto pass. However, Oregon 's legislaturecreatedthe Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Council (OSSPAC). It
expects to retainafocus on existing earthquake-vulnerable buildingsas it considerslong-term strategies.

26

Collection ofreliablecost dataon which to base a

more extensive, structured, andcost beneficialprogram ofseismic rehabilitationalso has started In
effect, this is a "MandatoryProgram"model but
one that is being implemented in an incremental
andcautious mannerpending the development of
more reliabledata on which to make such a significantpublicpolicy decision.

Implementation has begun. On December 1, 1994,

PresidentClinton signedExecutive Order12941.
This significantpolicy action, titled "Seismic Safety
OfExistingFederallyOwned OrLeasedBuildings,"
establishedminimum seismic rehabilitationstandardsfor "existing buildings constructedforor leased
by thefederalgovernment which were designedand
constructedwithout adequate seismic design and
construction standards." While the Orderestablishes standards,a loophole is providedfrom what is
an internalfederal mandatoryprogram. Under Section 3, "ImplementationResponsibilities,federal
departmentsand agencies are allowed to "request
an exemption from this Orderfrom the Directorof
the Office ofManagement andBudget. " The conditions under which an exemption would be granted
have not been defined, andno exemptions had been

Seismic Rehabilitationin Context

FEMA 's initialefforts comprisedtwo benefit-cost

modelsfor applicationprimarilyto privately owned
buildings. Thefirstfocuses on single classes of
buildings (e.g., UR-s), andthe secondaggregates
the results ofseveralsingle classes to facilitate
rehabilitationdecisions about an entire area (e.g.,
PioneerSquare in Seattle or Old Sacramento in California. Additional cost data arecontainedin another FEMA document, NEERP Guidelinesforthe
Seismic RehabilitationofBuildings: Example Appli.cations(FEMA 276), expected to be availableby
mid-1998.

requestedor approvedat the time thispublication

wasprepared. The results of this assessment could
lead to a more active seismic rehabilitationprogram
amongfederalagencies. Moreover, publicized uvpgrading offederal buildingsin many communities
might triggergreaterattention to and action by local
governments, building owners, and others with a
stake in seismic rehabilitation.

BENEFIT-COST ANALYSES
Expenses associated with seismic rehabilitation -are
never trivial, largelytbecause the basic structural
frame of a building is at issue. In addition, many
nonstructural and mechanicallelectrical systems must
be enhanced commensurately. Thus, the question of
benefits justifying the costs keeps creeping into the
discussions. Benefit-cost analysis can help overcome
owners' initial resistance to investing in seismic
rehabilitation in that it provides a structured way to
compare the longer term benefits to be accrued when
compared to the sometimes seemingly high initial
-costs.

In essence, a benefit-cost analysisof the seismic re-

habilitationofa buildingrequires a cost estimateof

the rehabilitationplan (always the easierpart)anda
probabilisticestimate offitture benefits (more difcult). Benefits arecalculatedon a netpresentvalue
basisto accountforthe time value of money. They
also depend on the expected annualprobabilitiesof

futwue earthquakes andestimated "avoidedlosses."

Those estimatedavoidedlosses include bitldingrepairor replacement-costs,damage to contents and
inventory, relocationcosts, lost income, andthe
monetrwy value ofavoideddeaths and injuries
(basedon a "statisticalvalue oflife'). The benefitcost ratiostend to be high (favorable) when the
buildingis of a hazardousclass, the estimatedcost of

Seismic rehabilitation costs money and money is

scarce (by definition) but someone has to pay for it.
In applying the Guidelines, a benefit-cost analysis is
one way to link together and compare risk, expected
building performance, estimated direct losses (including property damage, relocation costs, and losses
in inventory, sales and rental income) with long-term
benefits (the avoided future damage and ancillary
losses) so that intelligent, or at least in formed,
choices can be made about investing in rehabilitation. In the private sector, return on investment is
another important factor that must be taken into account.

rehabilitationis modest, and the annualprobability

ofearthquakes is high.
The appropriateFEMA publicationsandsoftware
are apairoftwvo-volume sets: A Benefit-Cost Model
for the Seismic Rehabilitationof Buildings ('FE1L4
227 and 228, 1992) aId FederalBuildings:A

Benefit-Cost Model (FEMt 255 and256, 1994)

which also includes methodsfor estimatingthe valte
ofpublic services.
In addition, a useful companion two-volume refer-

ence is availablefrom FEtVI

Case I8: The FEMA Benefit-CostModelling

the second edition

of Typical Costsfor Seismic RehabilitationofBuildings, Vol.1, andSupportingDocumentation, Vol. 2.

The new edition is basedon a sample of2, 000 seismnic rehabilitationprojects throughoutthe counztry
that ivere carefully screened and their-costdata analyzed by sophisticatedstatisticaltechniques. In addition to mean costfigures, Volume 1 offers the user
three optionalmnethods of alculation, eachyielding
resultsthat have variancesthat become smalleras

FEMA has been addressingthe fundamental "is it

worth it" question since 1989 by supportingthe development of basicbenefit-cost muethods, including
manuals and sofatare, that will help users analyze
seismic rehabilitationpossibilities. The modelsprovide default valuesfor key variables, but they explicitly urge users to provide ('pluzg in') more accurate
and detailedlocal information wheneverpossible.

27

Chapter3

knowledge about the basic characteristicsofa single

building or an inventory ofbuildings increases. Volume 2 provides the statisticalunderpinningofthe
dataand information on additionalcosts associated
with the nonstructuralandadministrativeactivities
of a rehabilitationproject. There alreadyhas been
strong demandfor these volumes, and their use is
expected to grow considerablywith time, especially
as the implementation ofExecutive Order12941,
gains momentum.
In conducting benefit-cost analyses, it is important to
recognize that rehabilitation costs can vary significantly. Such variations can be attributed to local economic conditions, prevailing wages, use of union or
nonunion labor, times of day and days of week when
work can be done, the extent of other upgrades required, the costs of finishes, and similar items familiar to those in the design and construction industries.
In fact, the ancillary and "business interruption" costs
of a major seismic rehabilitation project could actually exceed the direct costs of design, teardown, construction, permitting, etc. See Chapter 4 for an
examination of potential societal issues by explaining the nature of each problem, typical issues that
may need to be addressed, and various ways of solving each problem.

hazardous structure abatement ordinance (i.e., this

was a "Mandatory Program" case) and was taking an
incredible amount of political heat as a result. Everybody was after him, and he was running from meeting to meeting. Not much can be done about the
number of must-attend meetings for a building official involved in a "Mandatory Program," but one of
the great virtues of the Guidelinesdocuments is that,
to return to the weather metaphor, these at least
provide a sea anchor to the building official caught in
the hurricane.

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES AND

WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITY
It is almost a cliche to say that damaging earthquakes
open "windows of opportunity" for advances in
earthquake safety, but this is an actual truism for
seismic rehabilitation. In California, still the perennial source for illustrations, in addition to code
changes for new construction, both statewide and
jurisdiction-specific seismic rehabilitation legislation
came as direct results of various earthquakes from
Long Beach 1933 through San Fernando 1971 to
Northridge 1994.
While the Guidelines documents do not and are not
intended to address the complicated issues involved
in repairing earthquake-damaged buildings, preearthquake seismic rehabilitation of existing buildings and post-earthquake retrofitting of damaged
buildings achieve the same purpose - lower risk to
life and property. From a socioeconomic perspective, many of the same problems arise, and some wisdom can be exchanged. For any community considering seismic rehabilitation, the issue of what to require of new buildings always surfaces in discussions
of what to require of existing ones. While the Guidelines documents offer several performance levels for
rehabilitated buildings, many communities, especially those in lower risk seismic zones, will obviously be unlikely to apply to old buildings standards
that exceed those required of new construction.
Therefore, the core of an acceptable program may be
correcting "fatal flaws" (those identified by the engineer and the building official) in various classes of
existing buildings.

BUILDING OFFICIALS: THE EYE OF

THE STORM
A jurisdiction's building officials are central under
any of the three models and in any effort at seismic
rehabilitation. Sooner or later they will be involved
either actively or passively. To explain, a weather
metaphor might be appropriate. Keeping in mind the
increasing conflict potential in the three models, we
can think of attrition as normal weather. The "Voluntary Program" is then a tropical depression and,
the "Informal/Encouragement Program," a tropical
storm. The "Mandatory Program" is a full blown
hurricane. The building official is the constant, however, for he or she remains in the eye of the storm
regardless of its size. In fairness, design professionals
can become caught up as well.
Consistent with this perspective, a researcher once
tried to contact the head of a building and safety department who was directing the preparation of a draft

28

Chapter 4
TYPICAL SOCIETAL ISSUES IN
SEISMIC REHABILITATION
M

tionality. A related FEMA publication (FEMA 172,

p. 17) notes that:

Because rehabilitation deals with existing and usually

occupied buildings, the range of socioeconomic issues likely to be encountered - and needing to be
solved - can be formidable. Moreover, the intensity, nature, and complexity of such problems xvill
vary somewhat from building to building even
though sections or neighborhoods of cities and towns
slated for seismic rehabilitation will have common
problems depending on the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the designated areas.

Most buildings are intended to serve one or more

functional purposes (e.g., to provide housing or to
enclose a commercial or industrial activity). Since
the functional requirements are essential to the effective use of the building, extreme care must be
exercised in the planning and design ofstructural
modifications to ensure that the modifications will
not seriously impair the functional use.

This chapter breaks the overall forest of issues down

into trees (at least the socioeconomic .andadministrative ones) that commonly arise in seismic rehabilitation programs. Each subject is discussed in terms of
the nature of the problem, typical issues likely to
arise in connection with that problem, and some possible ways to solve or at least ameliorate the negative
impacts of the problem. It is an axiom that the lower
the level of conflict the easier it is to first adopt and
then implement measures that have retroactive
characteristics.

DEMOGRAPHIC, SOCIAL, AND

ECONOMIC FACTORS IN SEISMIC
REHABILITATION
Because existing buildings were built to earlier standards and often are occupied, a wide spectrum of
social and economic problems may be encountered
when seismic rehabilitation is considered. Some or
all of them may arise during the project planning process. The most significant topics are discussed below: the distribution of impacts on various segments
of the community; means to minimize business interruption, occupancy dislocation, and the loss of housing; the treatment of historic properties; and
approaches for financing seismic rehabilitation. For
example, when San Francisco examined socioeconomic factors related to its URM buildings, it found
that 7 percent of the businesses were in URMs, 7.5
percent ofjobs were in URMs, and 7 percent of the
URMs provided housing, even though only 3.7 percent of the city's residents lived in URMs.

The first section of this chapter discusses

demographic, social, and economic factors while the
second section treats public policy and administrative
issues typically involved in seismic rehabilitation.
For example, ownership patterns, income levels, historic properties, and occupancy characteristics are
contained in the first section while policy fonnulation
and adoption strategies and legal and program management issues are included in the second section.
An overriding concern in seismic rehabilitation has
to do with -accommodating the building's intended
use. Obviously, all design professionals know they
have to accommodate the owner's intended uses of
the candidate building. However, seismic rehabilitation projects often are technically tricky and part of
their success depends on achieving an effective balance between improved earthquake safety and func-

Evaluating the Distribution of Impacts Due

to Seismic Rehabilitation
Nature of the Problem: Seismic rehabilitation affects people differently. There are organized interests that may become mobilized, and there are latent

29

Chapter4

ones that may emerge during the process of formulating seismic rehabilitation policy as well as around
specific projects. Chambers of commerce, merchants
associations, local design professionals, and boards
of realtors are examples of formal interests while
building owners, loosely structured neighborhood
groups, or even tenants within individual structures
may organize around a given project.
It seems clear that supporters of seismic rehabilitation may be a coalition of local and distant design
professionals, building officials, and others committed to seismic rehabilitation, but the opponents most
often are totally local, those whose immediate interests are most likely to be directly affected. It is important, therefore, to anticipate the composition and
range of interests of the coalitions that might form
and to evaluate what the impacts will be on each and
how each will perceive and therefore react to proposed seismic rehabilitation programs and projects.
Typical Issues: Several key issues will arise in virtually every seismic rehabilitation policy development
process:
What is the scope ofthe seismic rehabilitationeffort?
It matters greatly if the project is one building, a well
defined portion of the city (e.g., "Pioneer Square"), a
concentrated or evenly widely distributed class of
existing buildings (e.g., URM bearing wall structures), or a targeted use (e.g., theaters and. churches).
The scope of the seismic rehabilitation program will
define the interests most likely to become involved in
the process.
What existing local groupsare likely to become involved, and what will be theirparticularinterests in
seismic rehabilitation?
Can support or opposition be expectedfrom latent
intereststhat might define seismic rehabilitationas
an issue?

Identify government agencies, community groups,

andprofessionalandbusiness associations that historically have played key roles in planningandzoning, redevelopment, buildingcode, housing, andrelatedissues. This information often can be obtained
from local agencies. Review the positions taken and
attitudes expressed by these groups on related issues.
Identify latent or emergent groups thatmay or may
not have been actively involved in thepast but that
could become so depending on thefocus ofthe seismic rehabilitationprogram. This may be more difficult than identifying formal groups, but it is worth
the effort because unexpected vocal opposition, even
from a small but highly visible group, can have serious consequences for proposed projects.
Hold well announcedcommunity meetings to introduce the concept while the program is still in theformative stage. One effective mechanism is to then
form a "Community Advisory Committee" whose
members represent all interests. This group then can
examine the issues in a common framework and perhaps reach consensus on critical issues. Community
meetings and advisory groups require extensive technical and staff support, and this workload should be
anticipated.
Inform the local media, especially the local newspapers that tendtofollow local issuesfor extended
periodsand that can have a major influence on the
acceptabilityof seismic rehabilitationprograms.
This takes skill and preparation, but the evidence is
clear that newspaper support is very important and
that newspaper opposition can prove fatal. Skillful
work with the media may even prevent seismic rehabilitation from becoming a "hot" issue.

Determining Occupant Dislocation and

Business Interruption

What work will be required, how much will it cost,

and when must it be completed?
The answers to these questions define the potential
intensity of the interests' positions.
Solving the Problem: Several actions can be taken
to anticipate the impacts of and the interests likely to
be affected by seismic rehabilitation projects and programs. Some suggestions include:

Nature of the Problem: While extensive seismic

rehabilitation projects do not always, they can require
relocation of building owners, employees, commercial tenants, and residents. If the construction work
is relatively minor but cannot be accomplished with
the occupants in place (during off hours when the
building is closed), it is better to face this issue as
early as possible and allow plenty of time to solve it.
If the seismic rehabilitation project involves leased
MMM

30

Typical Societal Issues in Seismic Rehabilitation

tence of asbestos) that could make seismic rehabilitation more complex and expensive.

space and if it is encumbered with a mortgage, loss

of rental income to service the debt can become a
major concern. It is therefore important to anticipate
how potential extra direct costs and inconveniences
can be ameliorated in the quest for safer buildings.

Cashfowfor debt service and operatingexpenses is

critical. Anything, including seismic rehabilitation,
that interrupts that flow can have major implications.
Nevertheless, the situation will vary with each case.
Internal operating or capital improvement monies
could be used where they exist .and rehabilitation is
included in scheduled outlays. As incentives, local
governments could suspend property taxes and other
charges until the building is ready to be reoccupied.
Other types of remodeling and rehabilitation often
are done upon transfer of the property to new owners
or when major tenants relocate to other facilities.
Large tenant commercial leases often last for about
five years, and rehabilitation could be scheduled to
coincide with a tenant's decision not to renew its
lease. Financial advisors to both owners and local
governments may well be aware of other possibilities
to soften the cash flow impacts of seismic rehabilitation.

Typical Issues: While only some of the impacts are

financial, they are the major ones. Typical issues
within this context include:
Howfeasible is it toperform the seismic rehabilitation work without havingto relocatethe occupants
to other locations? This depends a great deal on the
building's occupancy and some - even extensive seismic rehabilitation projects have been completed
without relocation.
In addition to the costs of construction, how can the
owvners continue topay the mortgage, insurance,
tares, andother operatingcosts when the building is
not generatingincome? Unless owned outright with
costs financed from savings or from a capital improvement pool ofthe building owner, this "cash
flow" question becomes important.

he picture is less clearfor.commerciallessees and

Who is responsiblefornotifying the tenantsandresi- residentialrenters. The minimum is to provide as
much advance notice as possible so they can take
dents, paying the costs ofrelocation, and allowing
sufficient timefor the relocationprocess to occur?
appropriate steps to minimize the negative impacts.
These issues are at the heart of the viability of comOne possible strategy to ameliorate the costs to such
mercial, residential or business occupancies. The
occupants could be to help them find temporary and
answers often depend on the availability of other
comparably priced nearby space coupled with giving
nearby comparable space, equitable rents, and the use them "first right of refusal" to return to the rehabiliof various subsidies.
tated building. Local governments may be able to
offer other incentives through neighborhood revitalSolving thee Problem: A variety of actions can be
ization and community redevelopment measures.
taken to ameliorate these problems including the folSuch techniques often involve tax, loan, and other
lowing:
incentives, and they can include relocation services
Ensure that the initialfeasibifitystudy of aparticular assistance.
seismic rehabilitationproject can address the question ofwhether the work can be done without substantiallydisruptingoperations. It is much easier in
Minimizing the Social and Economic Impacts
single occupant office buildings or commercial
on Housing
properties that are empty during the late hours and
Nature of the Problen: Although a relative term in
where some internal temporary space-sharing can
any economic setting, "affordable housing" deserves
occur than in multiple tenant or residential occupancies. In addition, the contractor will have to carefully a special focus because of its importance to the community, lower income neighbors, and social justice.
ensure that the construction work areas are sealed
Sadly, in many communities it often is the lower inadequately and that time is allowed for thorough
come and, just as often, non-English speaking unorclean-up before normal business operations resume.
ganized
members that also reside in the more
One also must be aware of other problems (the exisearthquake-vulnerable buildings. When displaced by

31

Chapter4

damaging earthquakes, these same people also become the most dependent on emergency shelter, financial assistance, and other direct aid. The more
affluent find temporary quarters, have other financial
resources, and generally are better able to adjust.
Recent research (Comerio, 1995) based on data about
the housing losses from the 1994 Northridge earthquake estimates that 60,000 dwelling units could be
"significantly damaged" after a major event in the
region. Of these 60,000, only 7,000 would be singlefamily dwellings. Thus, about 53,000 units would be
apartment units and about 50 percent would have to
be vacated because of the damage. Using 3.5 persons per apartment unit as an average, this means that
over 90,000 renters could be homeless. A comparable calculation for an equivalent earthquake on the
San Francisco Bay area's Hayward Fault is more depressing because of higher population densities.
About 240,000 housing units could be significantly
damaged, of which about 100,000 could be
unoccupiable. Using the same 3.5 person household
average, the homeless could number about 350,000
people (Comerio, personal communication, September 1995). Although less glamorous, technically
challenging or financially rewarding than other forms
of seismic rehabilitation, the need for effective mitigation measures to protect the nation's housing stock
is great.
Typical Issues: While the major issues are comparable to the earlier ones, the main difference is that
housing rehabilitation focuses on small economic
units (individuals and families). Consequently, it is
important to determine:
How long will theproject take and where can the
occupantsgofor the duration ofthe work?
Canthe owner affordthe rehabilitationwork and
are there any incentives or cost offsets that can help
pay the costs?
If the occupants arerenters, will they be able to afford the rentof the rehabilitatedhousing unit?

Will the owner remove housing units on the site and

use the buildingfor something else?
Solving the Problem: Generally speaking, more affluent residents can afford to pay for and vacate their
housing during substantial remodeling and rehabilitation. As income declines, however, this easy option
disappears. Thus:
Fortunately, even in the smaller (1 to 2 story) singleand multiple-family units, many housingrehabilitation techniques can be employed without requiring
occupantrelocation. Examples include bolting foundations to sills, tying chimneys to the structure, installing effective shear walls, and applying other
sound and well understood techniques. Moreover,
such work can be linked to other changes being made
to the units. Depending on the scope, such work often lasts only a few days or weeks. However, the
seismic rehabilitation of larger buildings, (e.g., apartment buildings) can become complex, costly, and
time consuming. Such work is comparable to rehabilitating commercial structures and many of the problems will be the same. Condominiums and other
"planned unit developments" create special problems
because of the joint maintenance responsibilities for
the common areas and governing processes involved
in managing such developments.
The affordabilityof seismic rehabilitationis afunction of thefinancialresources availableandthat depends to a greatextent on whether or not the building is owner-occupied While desirable, there are
very few financial incentives available to housing
owners to stimulate seismic rehabilitation. This remains one of the major challenges to speeding up the
process. Some aids do exist. For example, California law prevents the raising of property taxes when
seismic safety improvements are made to buildings
so at least the owner is not penalized by a tax increase. The popular equity lines of credit can be
used for home improvements and the interest is tax
deductible. Savings also can be used.
Increasedrents often are a result of buildingrehabilitation. Covering the costs of rehabilitation and attracting a more affluent clientele are frequently interwoven motives along with a desire to increase the
market value of the structure. This creates special
problems for lower income renters. Some techniques
for minimizing the impact of higher rents include:

If the occupants are in poor health or disabledand

have to be relocated, can support be providedin the
new locations?
Will the owner demolish the buildingandput occupants on the street?

lnjma

32

Typical Societal Issues in Seismic Rehabilitation

ing of original features, or the introduction ofvisible

bracing elements...."

local officials giving higher priority to people displaced by seismic rehabilitation and qualifying them
for rental assistance programs; increasing other cost
offsets such as providing renters with free or
reduced- cost public transportation vouchers and
other benefits; and allowing the adjustment of rents
within specified time and monetary limits. Nevertheless, the fundamental tension will continue between
achieving a safer building (a public good) and controlling the cost of living (a private matter). The extent to which seismic rehabilitation can be directly or
indirectly subsidized can greatly affect the continued
availability of affordable housing.

On the other hand, the Preservation Tax Incentives

for Historic Buildings have provided the means for
rehabilitating many buildings. The initiative allows a
20 percent investment tax credit (ITC) for the certified rehabilitation of an income-producing, depreciable certified historic building and a 10 percent ITC
for the rehabilitation of income-producing, depreciable buildings (excluding residential rental) built before 1936. Seldom does the seismic rehabilitation
cost more than the 20 percent ITC.
Typical Issues: From our perspective, a number of
issues related to the seismic rehabilitation of historic
buildings are important including:

Historic Properties Destined for Seismic

Rehabilitation

What is an historicbuilding? To quote from an earlier FEMA document (FEM[A 237, p. 79):

Nature of the Problem: During the past 20 or so

years, efforts have been mounted to identify, preserve, and tightly control the uses of and modifications to properties considered "historical." Seismic
rehabilitation work on buildings falling into this category can be very challenging for the design and construction community because of special regulations,
the existence of delicate finishes and archaic (and
often mixed) materials, aesthetic needs, and little or
no information about the site, foundation or structural conditions ofthe structure. Whenever historic
buildings are involved, it is very important to carefully review governing codes, standards, and other
applicable materials such as the Secretary of the Interior's Standardsfor Rehabilitationand Guidelines
for RehabilitatingHistoricBuildings (see Chapter 6).

... there is no indisputable definition of "historic

building." Guidance is provided on rehabilitation
of historic buildings in state documents such as the
State Historic Building 'Code in California or in
federal documents such as the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation and Guidelines
for Rehabilitating Historic Building and associated
guidance. Buildings may be listed on the National
Register ofHistoric Places, a state historic register,
or a local listing that has official status. In some
cases, rather than a simple determination that a
building is on or off such a list, a ranking of the
degree to which a building is historic is made with
reference to a local priority or historic value scale.
Criteria and the process for placing buildings on
such lists vary and can be influenced by local demands that include considerations beyond this historic quality of an individual building, such as desires to minimize density and land use changes or
to avoid renovation or new construction that would
introduce higher rents.

One structural engineer experienced in the seismic

rehabilitation of older and historic structures noted
that (FEMA 237, p. 77): "All of these [archaic] systems were designed prior to the development of seismic standards for buildings. Probably none were
designed for seismic performance at all." However,
because such buildings are intended to be "permanent" fixtures of the built environment they merit
seismic rehabilitation. Nonetheless, ". . . in any community the presence of even a few historic buildings
will greatly complicate the implementation of either
voluntary or mandatory seismic protection policies
for existing buildings" and the ". . . effort to extensively strengthen the building can tend to result in the
removal of much of the original material, the obscur-

Chapter 1 of the Guidelinesvolume, however, states

that:
It must be determined -early in the process whether
a building is "historic." A building is historic if it
is at least 50 years old and is listed or potentially
eligible for the National Register of Historic Places
and/or a state or local register as an individual
structure or as a contributing structure in a district.
Structures less than 50 years old may also be historic ifthey possess exceptional significance. For
M
33

Chapter4

historic buildings, develop and evaluate alternative

solutions as to their effect on the loss of historic
character and fabric, using the Secretary of the
Interior's Standardsfor Rehabilitation.
Who hasjurisdictionofthe building? This seemingly simple issue is a very important one for owners
of historic buildings that are candidates for seismic
rehabilitation. One needs to determine who actually
owns the building (e.g., private party, charitable or
nonprofit organization, foundation, or government
agency). It also is important to determine who has
jurisdiction over the building (local, state, or federal
government) and, consequently, which codes or regulations will apply to the rehabilitation project. For
example, the city of Seattle has jurisdiction over every publicly or privately owned building except those
that belong to the federal government. While not all
states may have a state historical building code, the
city of Seattle enforces the State of Washington code.
Moreover, the owner and his/her design professionals
may have to observe other requirements depending
upon which category or register the historic building
appears is listed on. This specialized field requires
specialized expertise.
What is the occupancy and the amount ofoperationaldisruption that can be acceptedduring construction? Some historic buildings, like George
Washington's home in Mount Vernon, are landmarks
open to visitors while others, such as California's restored State Capitol, function as full-time office
buildings and house key activities and records. At
the local level, some historic buildings are in older
commercial areas of once small towns and their activities are important to the economy of the area and
the businesses or residents housed there. In these
cases, the amount of disruption, the need for relocation, the nearby availability of affordable alternative
space, and the scheduling of the work become important considerations.
What level ofperformance is desiredand how much
will it cost? While key questions for all buildings,
they are especially important for historic structures
because the answers tie back to the building's importance, replacement cost (if it can be replaced at all),
the objective earthquake risk, acceptable levels of
damage, types of historic finishes, and sources of
funding.

34

Solving the Problem: Dealing with the unique problems posed by historic building rehabilitation can
take several forms, alone or in combination depending on the circumstances. Owners sometimes have
relatively little to say about what can be done to their
designated historic buildings. Therefore, suggested
strategies include:
Determine if the particularbuildinghas indeed been
designatedhistoricand by whom. This information
will determine whose design and construction regulations and enforcement processes will govern the project.
Review the regulationsandprocesses, payingparticularattention to any specialstandards or exemptions, design review requirements, appeals or approvalprocesses,flexibility in time for compliance,
alternativeapproaches, andsimilai factors.
Like other buildings, determine the currentuse ofthe
historicstructure and what the dislocationand other
extra needs might be to accommodate the occupants
andfunctions. This will require some effort if these
problems can be handled imaginatively, easily, in a
timely fashion, and affordably.
Analyze the exposure of the building to the expected
earthquake risk in the region andbalance this with
the building's value to the community. There is the
need to judge the building's long-term significance,
its occupancy and function, the cost to replace it versus the cost to repair it occasionally, and other factors. The answer will almost never be clear. Given
the desired permanence of historic buildings, it may
mean that the rehabilitation decision will have to
consider lower probability but more severe ground
motions and more earthquake occurrences during its
estimated post-rehabilitated lifetime.
Select the desiredseismic rehabilitationperformance
levelfrom the Guidelines. As with other buildings,
this is critical because the selection will drive the design alternatives, costs, and scheduling. FEMA 237
(p. 80) notes that such an ". . . approach will help
preserve historic buildings from earthquakes, even if
they are strengthened only up to a minimum life-safety level, and prevent the situation from developing
where the historic buildings will be the most hazardous in a community."

Typical SocietalIssues in Seismic Rehabilitation

Determine what efforts areneeded to accommodate

the relocation ofthe occupants, time neededfor rehabilitation,andhow andifthe most importantfunctionsperformedin the buildingcan be or need to be
maintained. Solutions to these issues will vary with
each project.
Involve and, to the extentpossible, obtain consensus
among the controllingstakeholdersthat thepreferredseismic rehabilitationtechnique will be effective andworkable. Historic buildings are highly visible and the foci of often influential advocacy groups.
Therefore, it is important that advocates be informed
ofthe potential project and be brought into the process 'early; it is worth the up-front investment of time
and energy.

It is clear. however, that the pace of seismic rehabilitation is increasing in places like California where
frequent recent events have occurred; higher risk is
perceived; and lenders and insurers are evaluating
properties more closely, limiting coverages, raising
deductibles, and taking other measures to lessen their
exposure to earthquake losses.
TypicalIssues: Successfully answering several
questions is at the heart of investing in seismic rehabilitation. Savings, loans, operating revenues, or capital improvement funds are traditional and usually
private-sector sources of money to finance seismic
rehabilitation. However, some may ask:
A4re there governmentprogramsavailableto help
payforseismic rehabilitation?

Obtainthe advice ofstate historicpreservationofficers and other specialists in thepreservationof historicfinishes and involve them from the very beginning ofthe rehabilitationprocess.

What incentives exist that atleast could help offset

the direct costs ofseismic rehabilitation?
Can an owner adjusthis/her insurancecosts to free
upfundsfor seismic rehabilitation?

Finding ways to address the unique problems associated with the seismic rehabilitation of historic buildings will help ensure that the threat of earthquake
damage to these structures will be reduced and that
they will continue to be important reminders of earlier times and events.

Solving the Problem: The financing mix necessary

to increase the earthquake resistance of existing
buildings will vary on a case-by-case basis, but some
suggestions can be provided:

Financing Seismic Rehabilitation

Nature of the Problem: While regular building
maintenance is a continuing operating cost, seismic
rehabilitation and other major capital improvements
can be expensive, especially for larger buildings.
The ability to finance such improvements varies
greatly with the owner's ability to pay, what seismic
rehabilitation work needs to be done to the building,
and what other improvements will be made at the
same time. Since each building has its own story, it is
very important to determine if the costs of seismic
rehabilitation are affordable. One observer noted
that, especially in the eastern United States, most
older buildings have expended much of their useful
life and frequently may not be providing adequate
financial returns in their current condition. Many
engineers have submitted reports about what should
be done to a building to improve its earthquake performance, only to see little or no subsequent action
taken.

35

If a public agency, the owner can seek direct appropriationsthrough the normalbudgetaryprocess.
Other possibilities include raising money through the
issuance of bonds and other forms of financial participation in public projects. For example, in 1990,
California's voters approved Proposition 122, which
made $3,00 million available to strengthen existing
buildings owned by state and local governments.
Soon after the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs secured funding
through the regular budget process to seismically
evaluate and rehabilitate many of its older buildings
across the country. As noted earlier, the school district in Clayton, Missouri, raised money via a bond
issue and San Leandro used Certificates ofParticipation.
Limited incentives (mostly indirect)exist andshould
at least be consideredas ways to offset the direct
costs ofseismic rehabilitation. In 1990, Californians
voters approved Proposition 127, which exempted
seismic rehabilitation improvements to buildings
from being reassessed to increase property taxes.

Chapter4

Special funding and tax measures often are part of

community redevelopment programs and seismic
rehabilitation costs could be considered eligible project costs. State legislation might be needed to expand the definition of "blight" to include hazardous
buildings. Bonds might be used to guarantee loans
for rehabilitation, but this may be a problem (as it has
been in California) because bond holders take precedence over mortgage holders in the event of foreclosure and revenue bonds must be repaid from income
generated by the projects they fund.
While mobile homes are not "buildings" in Guidelines terms, San Bernardino County, California, is
implementing a financial incentive program to seismically strengthen these structures. Learning from
the over 7,000 mobile homes damaged in the Northridge earthquake, the county has selected a manufacturer of a foundation bracing system. Owners of existing units must use this approved system to qualify
for a low-interest loan program. It is financed by a
taxable 7-year bond issue, and the bond buyers receive 10.25 interest. Described as a "win-win" situation, it is "revenue neutral" to the county and participating cities. In addition, low-income mobile home
owners also may be eligible for redevelopment funds
and other federal and state assistance (CSSC, September 1995)
In the city of Berkeley, 50 of the property transfer fee
is waived when a new owner of a house bolts it properly to the foundation. San Leandro, California,
waives the need for a building permit and its fees
when an owner uses standard guidance provided by
the building department to secure his or her home to
its foundation. San Francisco's $350 million bond
issue (Earthquake Loan Bond Program, November
1992) designates two-thirds of the money ($233.3
million) for the seismic rehabilitation of housing.
This means that owners get lower interest rates
(about 1.5 below the bank's rates) and better lending
terms if the rents are kept affordable. Loans to seismically rehabilitate housing units under this program
were costing only about 3 percent in the fall of 1995.
Other types of incentives have been discussed or
used in a variety of different contexts. Point-of-sale
disclosure requirements and inspections of and repairs to specified conditions or items could be required for residential and commercial properties.

Post-disaster aid might be allocated in ways that reward those who invested in seismic rehabilitation
rather than those who did not.
Some post-earthquake assistance measures might be
adapted to act as pre-earthquake seismic rehabilitation incentives. For example, in addition to waiving
permit fees to help recover from the Northridge
earthquake, Los Angeles waived sewer connection
and business relocation permit fees and extended the
payment schedule for business taxes for six months.
The city loaned victims hundreds of millions of dollars as "loans of last resort" to help repair damaged
housing. Business assistance centers were set up to
help small businesses prepare loan applications and
supporting business plans. The housing department
hired "work out loan specialists" to help design loan
packages and solutions and also to become sales people who contacted individual property owners to convince them to apply. Some damaged commercial
properties are being taken over by nonprofit organizations, which entitles such organizations to various
assistance programs and incentives not available to
private owners.
The underlying principle, however, is that the mix of
incentives must support the goal of seismic rehabilitation and be consistent with state, local, and private
financial laws and practices in the area. The property
insurance industry, especially after experiencing major losses in recent years, is becoming more active in
the field of mitigation, and seismic rehabilitation is
one area of interest. Perhaps this will lead to rate
differentials (incentives or disincentives) for at least
high value properties where seismic rehabilitation
work is accomplished.
Risk managersfor some private owners have
assumed more ofthe exposure by changingthe mix
between premiums, deductibles, andself-insurance
reserves, which has sometimesfreed cashfor seismic
rehabilitation. The objectives are not only to protect
the physical plant but to lessen the business interruption costs. As premiums and deductibles have increased and property insurance carriers have placed
limits on how much they will pay the policyholder,
such strategies have become more common. In lieu
of paying higher premiums, one approach is to pay
for seismic rehabilitation from savings achieved by
taking lower coverages and assuming higher deducta

36

Typical SocietalIssues in Seismic Rehabilitation

ibles. Some organizations have even established special reserve accounts to have cash available to make
early repairs to damaged buildings. This risk management practice also has been followed by some
government agencies whose continued operations are
of critical economic importance (e.g., port authorities). While some seismic rehabilitation work can be
undertaken with these funds, such special "force
accounts" basically provide ready cash for post-earthquake emergency repairs and mitigation actions, even
though the entities involved probably will qualifz for
later federal disaster assistance payments.

PUBLIC POLICY/ADMINISTRATIVEl

ISSUES IN SEISMIC REHABILITATION

Important policy and administrative issues are
inherent in the process when local and state
governments exercise their powers and become
involved in seismic rehabilitation programs (even
though they also may arise occasionally in voluntary
efforts). This section focuses on factors that might
"trigger" seismic rehabilitation, local capabilities to
regulate and perform such work, managing the
political issues in program adoption and
implementation, addressing common legal problems,
choosing which buildings (or how many) to
rehabilitate, evaluating the local fiscal effects of
rehabilitation, and achieving the mitigation of other
hazards while reducing seismic risk.

(triggered) part of a more extensive renovation or

remodeling project.
Triggers faIl into two principal categories - active
and passive. Active ones are instigated by building
departments and include such things as ordinances
requiring the seismic rehabilitation of nonductile
concrete frame buildings, the securing of parapets on
URM buildings, or the replacement of damaged
structural members with those that meet current
requirements. Passive triggers are those that come
into play when a building owner proposes to make
changes to the structure, use Or occupancy of the
building, when vacant buildings are to be reoccupied
(especially when deterioration is evident), and when
the owner proposes to sell the building and the transaction is governed by disclosure requirements. Some
common triggers are activated if a building:
* Is in a defined class (e.g. URM, pre-1973 tiltup)?
Is proposed to undergo major remodeling, (e.g.,
costing more than a specified amount or 50
percent of its replacement value)?
* Will have a major increase in the number of
occupants (e.g., warehouse to offices)?
* Will change uses (e.g., manufacturing to trendy
loft-style apartments)?

* Will be changing owners under certain circumstances?

* Is located in a special district (e.g., San Diego's
Gaslamp Quarter)?

Triggering Seismic Rehabilitation

While triggers are technical matters, they are not

discussed in the Guidelines documents because their
selection is a fundamental policy choice in seismic
rehabilitation. Triggers may not specify what the
extent of work must be, but they do function as an
Itoff-on" switch.

Nature ofthe Problem: Much of the information in

the Guidelines documents eventually could be used
to develop formal seismic rehabilitation codes and
standards for use by state and local jurisdictions.
Often the rehabilitation of existing buildings requires
that permits be obtained, plans be approved, and inspections be conducted. Design professionals and
building officials are aware that the extent of a
proposed remodel often "triggers" requirements to
upgrade the building in many ways. Therefore, one
key local policy decision involves determining if and
under what circumstances seismic rehabilitation
standards or requirements become a required

TypicalIssues: Several key questions should be

addressed in deciding whether or not to use major
remodeling as a trigger for seismic rehabilitation and,
ifyes, what the specifications should be. Some
questions include:
Should triggersbe included in a negotiatedor
formally mandatedprogramat all or should seismic
rehabilitationbe left to thejudgement of the parties

37

Chapter4

involved? Examples of both approaches exist. A

traditional approach is that when the total project cost
amounts to 50 percent of the replacement value of
the building in question, the local building code requires that other modifications be made or that it
meet the requirements for new buildings. This has
the advantage of being clear to the parties involved
(i.e., the rules of the game are known). While trigger
requirements are important parts of the building regulatory environment, experience has shown that projects sometimes are broken down into discrete
smaller projects so that triggers and other process
requirements are avoided. This incremental approach to rehabilitation may achieve a narrow set of
owner-preferred property improvement objectives,
but it can miss important public safety objectives.
Another approach allows the building official to determine when seismic rehabilitation will be required
for a project. When it is, the owner, the involved
design professionals, and the building official negotiate the nature and extent of the seismic rehabilitation
work on a building-by-building basis.
What should be the rehabilitationstandard? Concern is frequently expressed that a rehabilitated
building must meet the local code's seismic requirements for new buildings. While it is especially important to increase the capacity of a structure to resist
earthquakes, it may not be feasible to require conformance with standards for new buildings for design,
cost, practical or political reasons,. Some seismic
improvement is better than none.
If seismic rehabilitationis triggeredand the project
goesforward, should the owner be guaranteedthat
further andfuture retroactiverequirements will not
be demandedfor some specifiedtime? Seismic rehabilitation often is expensive. It is important, therefore, that owners be granted some "grandfather"
guarantee that further seismic and possibly other upgrades will not be required for some specified (preferably lengthy) period of time.

establish a seismic rehabilitation program to minimize the triggering of these other requirements. For
example, San Francisco's building code regarding the
seismic rehabilitation of URM buildings provides
owners with an opportunity to obtain an exemption
from disabled-access requirements ifthe work is less
than about $86,000 (adjusted for 1996) based on
"hardship" or "legal and/or physical constraints";
requests for exemptions are handled by an access
appeals board.
Solving the Problem: The key to solving the problem of whether or not to include seismic rehabilitation triggers for major remodeling is directly related
to the fundamental policy choice the community
makes to achieve seismic safety in existing buildings.
If the choice is to formally require seismic rehabilitation, the remodeling program should contain clear
statements about the criteria that will trigger seismic
rehabilitation requirements. However, if the informal/encouragement approach is used, the local
building official has much greater latitude.
If triggers are to be formally prescribed, then choices
will have to be made about what they are. In general,
a "trigger" reflects a central policy decision for it determines when a building is or is not subject to seismic rehabilitation requirements. The choice of triggers is, therefore, at the crux of the seismic rehabilitation policy formulation and adoption process.
The standards governing existing federal government
buildings (ICSSC, RP4, p. 7) specify that a building
shall be evaluated and unacceptable risks mitigated
when any of the following triggers occur:
* A change in the building's function occurs that
results in a significant increase in the building's
level of use, importance, or occupancy as determined by the federal agency;
* A project is planned that will significantly extend
the building's useful life through alterations or
repairs that total more than 50 percent of the replacement value of the facility;

Will the proposedseismic rehabilitationproject trigger other requirements that, when taken together,
result in a too complex or expensive project? Typical requirements include hazardous material (asbestos) remediation, access for the disabled, and the installation of fire protection sprinkler systems. While
each has an important purpose, it may be possible to

* The building or part of the building has been damaged by fire, wind, earthquake, or other causes to
the extent that, in the judgment of the federal
agency, structural degradation of the building's
vertical or lateral load-carrying systems has occurred;

38

Typical Societal Issues in Seismic Rehabilitation

Even in California, where the number of people technically qualified for seismic rehabilitation work is
comparatively large, the pool is still quite shallow.
Clearly, a successful seismic rehabilitation project
depends directly upon the knowledge and experience
of those involved. This suggests that anyone initiating or regulating a rehabilitation project with a seismic component should not only carefully evaluate the
technical qualifications of those involved but should
also be prepared to supplement Or require additions
to a rehabilitation team.

* The building is deemed by the agency to be an

exceptionally high risk to occupants or the public
at large; or,
* The building is added to the federal inventory
through purchase or donation after the standards
were adopted for use by the federal government.
Triggers, however, can be narrowly defined so as to
severely limit seismic rehabilitation. A Utah state
law that became effective on January 1, 1993, requires that all commercial buildings built before
1975 be evaluated for seismic hazards and that corrective actions be recommended by the evaluating
engineer. However, as a state newsletter noted, the
law has been largely ineffective because it is triggered only "when said building is undergoing reroofing or alteration of or repair to" parapets and other
such limited items (State of Utah, p.5). The difficulty
is compounded by building officials being unaware
of the change or by owners contracting for reroofing
without obtaining a permnit.

Typical Issues: To determine if adequate technical,

regulatory, and construction experience and knowledge are being applied to a seismic rehabilitation project, several questions must be asked:
From a design andconstructionperspective, hom
complicatedis the projectand is the projectteam
fully qualifedto perform the specific work
proposed? Although every building has its own
story, some types or classes of structure are simpler
to rehabilitate than others. Unique or complex structures are especially problematic to rehabilitate, and
while substantial documentation and rehabilitation
experience exist for some structure classes (e.g.,
URM bearing wvall and tilt-up buildings), considerably less documentation and experience are available
to guide the rehabilitation of other kinds of construction.

While less formal than the triggers discussed above,

there are othermechanisms ("pseudo-triggers") that

can help achieve limited forms of partial or incremental seismic rehabilitation. Studies performed by
Building Technology, Inc., (1994, p. 1) on how to
improve the seismic safety of existing school buildings in several states focused on linking "incremental
seismic retrofit (rehabilitation,) opportunities to specific maintenance and capital improvement projects."
For example, roofing maintenance and repair could
include anchoring of parapets or roof-mounted lequipment and shear walls could be strengthened with plywood when finishes are exposed or removed for
other reasons.

Assessing Design, Regulatory, and

Construction Capabilities

Whether seismic rehabilitation is just one part of or is

the principal reason for a project, the earthquake engineering qualifications and experience of the project
team become very important considerations. Ensuring that the proper expertise is applied to the project
goes a long way toward effective quality control
throughout the process. Careful design is the first
part of a rehabilitation process; adherence to that design during the actual work is the second part. Both
are important.

Natureof the Problem: The rehabilitation of existing buildings challenges all involved parties - architects, engineers, other design professionals, local
planning and code enforcement officials, the myriad
of construction trades, and the owners. The challenges are especially acute for seismic rehabilitation
because the requisite knowledge, experience, and
capabilities vary widely across the United States.

When seismic rehabilitationprojects arefew andfar

between andwhen no prescribedguidelines or standards exist, how can the responsiblebuilding official
be confIdent that he orshe has the technicalcompetence availableto ensure that the seismic rehabilitation work is adequatelyplannedandproperlyperformed? Given the unusually high degree ofjudcgment involved in seismic rehabilitation projects, it is

39

Chapter4

important that the local regulatory agency have

knowledgeable and experienced expertise available
either on staff or externally.

quake Engineering Center (ERC) Stanford University.

Where can additionalseismic rehabilitationdesign

andconstruction expertise andcapabilitiesbe obtained? The securing of such expertise is a major
concern in every project, but it is even more of a
problem in areas where comparatively little experience exists and where the practicing architectural,
engineering, and construction communities are less
well informed about earthquake engineering and seismic rehabilitation. In these situations, local building
rehabilitation capabilities must be directly supplemented with specialized earthquake-related knowledge.
Solving the Problem: Many individuals, especially
from lower risk seismic zones of the United States
who helped design Chapter 5's Applications Scenarios, raised all of the preceding questions. They were
clearly concerned about the adequacy of the design,
engineering, construction, and regulatory capacities
in their locales to successfully perform seismic rehabilitation projects. A few suggestions are offered:
The Guidelines documents provide,for thefirst time,
comprehensive reference informationfor designprofessionals to use in strengtheningseismically weak
buildings. These documents reflect the state of
knowledge and practice that existed at the time of
publication. While each building has its own story.
and despite limited experience with the performance
of seismically rehabilitated buildings in actual earthquakes, the Guidelines documents provide a reasonable basis for undertaking such projects.
Professionalsocieties andtrade groups (including
local andstate architecturalandengineeringorganizations, contractorsassociations, and builders associations) are often helpful in locatingmembers with
seismic rehabilitationexperience. Such national
organizations as the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) in Oakland, California also
can help as can such university-based research organizations as the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (NCEER) at the State University of
New York (Buffalo campus), the Earthquake Engineering Research Center (EERC) at the University of
California at Berkeley, and the John A. Blume Earth-

If time allows, an individualcan increase his/her

expertise by self-study and by attendingtechnical
meetings andseminars conductedby a variety ofentities. Peer contacts also can be an efficient way of
locating appropriate consulting assistance. If sufficient long-term seismic rehabilitation work can be
expected, adding expertise directly to the staffs of
design, engineering, construction, and regulatory
organizations is another possibility. Indeed, for practitioners, adding such expertise might prove a competitive advantage in their market areas.
Depending upon the projectand situation, a variety
of adhoc mechanisms such as arrangingforindependent reviews by other (fully capable)practitioners can be used duringseismic rehabilitationprojects. Other such mechanisms include forming
project-specific panels of expert reviewers and, in the
case of regulatory agencies, establishing appeals
boards to advise on or even approve seismic rehabilitation projects. The latter mechanism is especially
helpful if no formal standards exist or if the project's
complexity requires substantial judgment and discussion.

Managing the Program Model's Adoption

and Implementation Processes
Nature of the Problem: As noted in Chapter 2, the
"Mandatory Program" can be the most controversial
to enact and implement, primarily because it requires
formal action by such elected bodies as town councils and boards of supervisors or commissioners. By
necessity, public policy actions are governed by elaborate and often time-consuming processes and, depending upon the details of the proposed program,
high levels of conflict may be generated. Therefore,
if seismic rehabilitation is to be achieved through a
formal policy adoption and implementation process,
several additional issues must be addressed.
Typical Issues: Once it has been decided that a formal seismic rehabilitation program is necessary, a
variety of political leadership, technical, process,
enforcement, and equity issues must be faced in trying to forge a program that is both effective and acceptable. The questions typically revolve around the
choice of a voluntary or mandatory approach, the
I

40

Tyical SocietalIssues in Seismic Rehabilitation

standards to be followed, the length of time allowed

for compliance (and penalties for noncompliance),
the distribution of costs and availability of cost offsets (subsidies, incentives, etc.), and the impacts of
dislocation and business interruption.
How can proponents achieve a placefor seismic rehabilitationon the often crowdedpoliticalagendas
ofgoverning bodies andcan they getfavorable action? Issues compete for space on the agendas of key
policy-makers and executives, be they corporate
boards of directors and chief executive officers or
public-sector elected or appointed bodies and administrative managers. Leveraging a place for earthquake safety, especially the subject of rehabilitating
potentially hazardous buildings, is a key first step in
what is usually a lengthy process. History provides
suggestions on how to place seismic rehabilitation on
decision-makers' agendas. Earthquakes, at least for a
short time, open the well known "windows of opportunity" by creating a change from the context of normal operations. In the aftermath of an earthquake, all
of the following heighten awareness, at least for a
time: the experience of actual losses and concern
about the vulnerability of other properties; the costs
of repair, replacement, or relocation; paying the relief
and recovery expenses; and the everyday -experience
of driving home through a disrupted community. In
other words, disaster experience usually, but not always, turns what earlier might have been abstract and
uncertain notions of threat to concrete appreciations
of risk and thereby opens that famous "window."
Disaster experience alone, however, may not be sufficient; there have been notable earthquakes that have
not resulted in significant actions to reduce future
losses.
Sustained leadership clearly plays a major role in
achieving seismic safety objectives. For example, as
a youngster, Los Angeles City Council member Hal
Bermson experienced the 1952 Arvin-Tehachapi
earthquakes. Later he was shaken by the 1971 San
Fernando earthquake. Representing a major portion
of the San Fernando Valley, he adopted seismic safety as an issue when he joined the city council, and he
has provided sustained leadership ever since. Although it took a decade '(1971-81), Bernson led the
way to the enactment of the well known Los Angeles
ordinance requiring the rehabilitation of URM
bearing-wall buildings. More recently, Councilm.an

Bernson chaired the council's ad hoc Committee on

Earthquake Recovery following the 1994 Nortiridge
Earthquake. In the lead capacity, Bernson sponsored
and shepherded through to adoption the ordinance
requiring the rehabilitation of pre-1976 concrete tiltup buildings (which were shown to have been a major problem as early as the 1971 earthquake).
Using an incremental approach to solve recognized
problems has a long and well documented history in
the United States. In fact, it is a common public policy strategy often dictated by budgetary or other practical realities. In the area of nonstructural seismic
rehabilitation, there is a relatively recent (1994) example. With the goal of eventually broadening its
application, the Silicon Valley Uniform Code Adoption Committee added a new section (3403.6) to the
codes administered by all Santa Clara County building departments. As a condition of tenant improvements, this new section states:
When a permit is issued for alterations or repairs,
the existing suspended ceiling system within the
area of alteration or repair shall comply with the
lateral design requirements of UBC Standard 25-2
Part III because this amendment is necessary to
mitigate a known seismic hazard in -existingbuildings.
At the state level in California, Senator Alfred E. Alquist was a junior member -ofthe Senate in 1969
when a staff member convinced him to adopt seismic
safety as an issue, partly because no one else "had it"
and partly because the staff member believed that
earthquake safety had important statewide implications. Alquist's efforts resulted in the 1970 creation
of a powerless, token, legislative study committee,
the Joint Committee on Seismic Safety. Nature,
coincidence, or luck then took a hand. The February
1971 San Fernando earthquake suddenly highlighted
the existence of this legislative study committee
(which became immediately recognized and respected) and led directly to many of California's seismic safety policy changes. Included in the innovations and with then-Governor Ronald Reagan's concurrence was the "institutionalization" of seismic
safety at the state level via creation of the California
Seismic Safety Commission. The fundamental longterm change (bolstered by a series of damaging earthquakes and widely publicized increasing probabili-

I
41

Chapter4

ties) has been that seismic safety is now a legitimate

and recurring item on the legislature's agenda.
Informal discussions suggest that this pattern of
issue-adopting by key leaders exists in private-sector
organizations as well. In some cases, the pressure to
address the seismic rehabilitation of buildings (and
other mitigation and preparedness activities) comes
from the home offices of companies with facilities in
active seismic areas.
Can localjurisdictionleaders adopt theirown program or do they need authorizinglegislationfrom a
higher level? This fascinating intergovernmental
relations issue is both real and symbolic. It may be
that some states, partly because of their statewide
building code requirements, would not permit local
jurisdictions to adopt retroactive seismic rehabilitation ordinances without authorizing state legislation
or without an initiative at the state level to empower
local agencies to carry out such programs. In more
decentralized states such as California, the cities of
Los Angeles, Santa Rosa, and others have the power
and took the initiative to enact rehabilitation requirements.
State action may either sanction a desired local initiative or, depending upon political context, provide an
acceptable scapegoat for local officials, especially
where policy action at the local level is hard to
achieve. In the late 1970s, the California legislature,
for example, enacted a law protecting design professionals and others involved in seismic rehabilitation
from liability under specified conditions, and this
facilitated an array of local actions by removing an
inhibitor to the professional design community.
In many cases, local officials would prefer that the
citizens perceive them as "having to carry out a state
requirement" rather than as policy initiators themselves. At the same time, many state legislatures are
dominated by suburban and rural members, and seismically hazardous buildings are not problems for
their districts. Therefore, unless it is a very urban
state, issues like the rehabilitation of buildings often
do not receive full attention from state legislators,
and it may be difficult to get state action. As one
veteran of Utah's early seismic safety efforts noted,
the Utah legislature primarily responds to local pressures rather than initiating much itself, especially if
the members perceive an issue as infringing on "local

control." In this context, a strong consensus among

local governments on the desired state action is critical. Again, the situation will determine how to approach the need for facilitating and/or authorizing
legislation from higher levels.
Are there ways to accommodate the various interests
in the process ofprogramdesign? Seismically
rehabilitating existing buildings, especially if they are
occupied, can become complicated because of the
temporary - and perhaps permanent - dislocations
involved. In moving away from the private voluntary
program, in which the owner controls the fate of the
occupants, to the mandatory program, where the
''we" versus "they" conflicting interests may become
paramount, the rehabilitation process should be ready
to deal with the range of issues and their advocates.
While the specific situation will determine the cast of
characters and their positions, they can range from
employee groups who pressure for rehabilitation for
their own protection (or oppose it because the relocation site may extend their home-to-work journeys) to
low-income tenants of single-room occupancy (SRO)
buildings whose mobility and options are very limited.
The heart of dealing with the range of potentially
involved groups is to deliberately identify the various
"stakeholder" interests in the rehabilitation process.
A strategy then must be devised to include these
group or their representatives, hear their concerns,
and accommodate them to the extent possible in the
project planning phase. Many local agencies, especially those involved with planning and community
development, have extensive experience with citizen
involvement and community hearings processes, and
this experience can be tapped and adapted for proposed seismic rehabilitation projects.
It may be that some permanent dislocations will be
necessary, and these will have to be evaluated on a
project-by-project basis. Problems are lessened by
the extent to which affordable and available (and often nearby) space is available, relocation assistance is
provided, and the opportunity to return to the rehabilitated structure is "guaranteed" or at least offered to
the previous occupants. Solving the "various interests" problem may require cooperative efforts between the building owners, real estate agents, property managers, and government officials.
-1

42

Typical SocietalIssues in Seismic Rehabiitation

tal facilities planning and the community development professions, the mixtures of government and
private funding become very complicated. In actuality, the financial packages come to resemble-metaphorically-"'marble cakes." As government's role
increases in seismic rehabilitation so does that
"'marbelling." The challenge, therefore, is to define
the respective roles of the private sector and government in seismic rehabilitation in ways that make it
feasible for each to contribute to the goal of providing safer buildings in as affordable a manner as possible. There are both direct and indirect ways to do
this, examples of which are discussed below.

What are the trade-offs between mandatory and voluntaryprograms? As noted above, this publication
is intended to help the reader understand the basic
choices available in seismic rehabilitation and the
fact that as such projects move from the private voluntary model to the informal/encouragement model
and, finally, to the fully mandated program model,
levels of conflict and complexity increase. Nevertheless, each model has characteristic advantages and
shortcomings. Even though greatly oversimplified,
Figure 4 summarizes the "pros and cons" of each
model.
Worthy of note is that this is not a linear sequence by
any means. Owners may or may not choose to rehabilitate; local and state governments may or may not
create formal programs (but they might lend encouragement and indirect support); local code and other
administrators might establish threshold standards or
criteria that are "triggered" on a case-by-case basis;
and the federal government may seismically rehabilitate its buildings regardless of whether or not local
jurisdictions do anything about seismic safety.

In fully mandated programs, government's role as a

partial financial partner can be critical. Local officials will have to consider the range of financial assistance they can offer to support the process. Oakland's seismic rehabilitation program for private
buildings is stalled because no money is available to
help owners with the costs. Meanwhile, the rehabilitation of Oakland's historic City Hall was financed
partly by a combination of voter-approved local bond
funds and federal disaster assistance monies which
flowed from the 1989, Loma Prieta earthquake. San
Francisco issued bonds, and San Jose has a redevelopment district in which URM building owners can
get assistance in financing their engineering studies
and rehabilitation projects.

All rehabilitation costs money and it has to come

from someone. The mandatory approach to rehabilitation is the most financially complex of the three
largely because government becomes an increasingly
important part ofthe solution and is therefore expected to bring its resources to the table. This expectation is especially high when the scope of seismic
rehabilitation encompasses a relatively large number
of buildings .andprescribes potentially expensive rehabilitation standards.

Government officials have great experience in

financing various projects. For example, direct
methods include capital funding to provide new or
upgraded facilities, issuing bonds to be repaid over
several decades, securing matching funds from state
and federal sources, and using tax increment financing. Indirectly, government can support the seismic
rehabilitation process by working with lenders to create attractive loan programs for community purposes,
waiving application and permit fees for projects, and
providing transferable development credits. The essential point is that government financial managers
and private sector companies must cooperate in seismic rehabilitation programs. In the long run, they
could be each other's most important partners.

Owner self-funding of seismic rehabilitation follows

traditional paths and is of real concern only to the
owner. Self-financing includes renegotiating the
mortgage to generate rehabilitation funds, using current income or savings, borrowing on the commercial
market, and/or selling additional stock to raise capital
(if it is a stock company). Public financial assistance,
however, comes in different forms and is constrained
by laws and regulations that often prescribe in detail
the allowable and legitimate purposes for which public monies may be expended. The underlying doctrine is that while governments can be partners in
financing solutions to community problems, they
cannot provide a gift of public funds for solely private ends. As is well known in public finance, capi-

What are the incentivesfor compliance andpenalties

for noncompliance with aprqgram? Incentives and
penalties can take many and sometimes surprising
forms, and the more formal the seismic rehabilitation

43

FIGURE 4 Seismic rehabilitation choices-advantages and limitations

I

VOLUNTARY PROGRAM
ADVANTAGES:
* Clearly reflects policy that owners are ultimately responsible
for the performance of their buildings.
o Owner and design and construction team choose project
scope, design criteria, timing, and process.
* Limited governmental involvement or control over project,
except for normal permitting requirements, but may trigger
other requirements.
* Owner assumes all project costs.
* Process iscomparatively simple and contains little conflict.
* May help local economy and revitalization of the nearby area.
* May set example for other owners.
. Economic hardships not an issue.
LIMITATIONS:
* May reduce the risk, but not get desired level of earthquake
resistance.

* Independent technical review by building departments

may be limited by lack of standards and expertise.
* Few buildings are involved, and the pace of seismic rehabilitation can be slow.
* Triggering of other requirements may kill the project.

INFORMALIENCOURAGEMENT PROGRAM

MANDATORY PROGRAM

ADVANTAGES:
* Symbolizes a practical more flexible commitment than the
mandatory approval.
* Based on some form of seismic safety trigger (change of occupancy, percentage or remodeling, cost, etc.)
* Owner assumes responsibility for project-related dislocations
and relocations.
* Provides for adherence to a set of common requirements that
is based on some level of actual earthquake risk.
* Allows variabilities of each building to be considered.
* Provides for some level of independent design and construction review, assuming the expertise is available.
* Few buildings make this relatively easy to administer on a
case by case basis.
* May be part of a local revitalization program that improves
local economy.
* While conflict may arise over a given project, widespread
mobilization of opposing interests is avoided.
* Costs borne by owners as part of total project costs or may be
some sharing with government.
* Completed projects could serve as examples for other
owners considering extensive ("triggered") remodeling or
rehabilitating projects.
LIMITATIONS:
* May reduce the risk, but not fully address actual risk.
* Case by case approach may be slow and difficult to administer because each project is unique.
* Local officials have no influence over potentially earthquake hazardous buildings unless they are going to be
substantially remodeled.
* May result in evictions and lease terminations, resulting in
unforeseen community problems.
* Requires fairly sophisticated expertise and assigned responsibilities in building departments.
* Could involve involuntary dislocations and relocations with
little due process available to those being displaced.
* Does not represent a shared community commitment to
seismic safety.
* May change with rotation of building department personnel.
* May result in owner relocating out of the jurisdiction to
one where requirements do not exist.

II

ADVANTAGES:
* Symbolizes a political (community-wide) commitment to seismic safety.
* Government and owners may share costs, responsibility for
project-related dislocations and relocations.
* Is based on formal policy with specified standards and regulatory processes.
* Each project is independently reviewed and inspected, assuming the expertise is available.
* Results in lower earthquake losses and less demand for response and recovery services and money.
* Assures uniformity of approach and adherence to a formal
schedule for all parties resulting in a more predictable process.
* May help revitalize local areas and economy.
* May reduce the risk, but not fully address the actual risk.
LIMITATIONS:
* May create unrealistic earthquake performance expectations
among the public and community leaders.
* Is the most difficult to establish politically, and may be feasible only in high risk areas.
* May involve direct or indirect cost sharing by local jurisdictions.
* Depending on scope, can result in significant dislocations,
which may be the local governments' responsibility to solve.
* Rather than conform, some owners may abandon the properties, relocate to other jurisdictions without such requirements, or take other avoidance measures.
* May result in evictions and lease terminations, resulting in
unforeseen community problems.
* Generates the highest level of conflict as the pool of affected
interests is expanded.
* Economic hardship can be very significant.
* May result in higher rent and lease costs, making it even
more difficult for lower income tenants and marginal businesses to survive.
* May make it difficult for owners to sell, insure, or qualify for
mortgages for nonrehabilitated properties.
* While meeting the formal criteria, but by stimulating the seismic rehabilitation market, can result in questionably competent practitioners and projects.
* May inhibit revitalization by adding costly requirements.

TypicalSocieta Issues in Seismic Rehabilitation

program, the more obvious are the incentives and

penalties. However, even in the voluntary and encouraged approaches, important incentives/disincentives exist. The exact mixture depends, of course,
upon the approach taken to seismic rehabilitation,
but the content and roles of incentives and penalties
should be carefully considered in the choice ofprogram type and in the program design phase.

ing risk analyses and earthquake insurance coverage

that directly affect an owner's decision about buildings known to be earthquake-vulnerable.
How will the community benefitfrom seismic rehabilitationin the long run, and how can the shortrun
dislocationsof businesses and residents be ameliorated? The issue of long-term gain versus shortterm pain pervades virtually all community renewal,
revitalization, redevelopment, and restoration measures, not just seismic rehabilitation. The governmental process is the proper place to negotiate a balance between the short-term dislocations and longerterm benefits to the community. When seismic
rehabilitation of buildings is made a component of
larger processes or programs, it is much more likely
to be successful.

For example, publicizing voluntary rehabilitation

may result in increased business and local goodwill
(which may be used to achieve other purposes) or it
might instill confidence in home office staff and suppliers and customers that a private facility will be capable of operating with a minimum of interruption
after an earthquake. In another case, local government can create wealth indirectly by issuing "development credits" for multiple property owners who
seismically rehabilitate their buildings. Indirect incentives also may include waiving other requirements (e.g., having to provide off street parking) or
allowing the owners to add additional stories to a
new building elsewhere. Government also can participate more directly in seismic rehabilitation by investing public funds in street lighting, transportation,
landscaping, and other improvements as part of a
broader areawide renewal effort; by establishing and
guaranteeing discounted interest loan programs to
help finance seismic rehabilitation; or by helping
find suitable space and paying the direct costs of relocating businesses and residents from structures
destined for seismic rehabilitation.

Los Angeles, for example, paid close attention to the

costs of its measures and established two increments
of rehabilitation. The first step required - in a short
time - the anchoring of the URM bearing walls to
the floors and roof structures of the affected buildings, a comparatively inexpensive task that often
could be accomplished without dislocating the occupants. The second step involved more extensive and
expensive bracing and other measures but allowed
installation over a longer time. Interestingly the ordinance specified that owners who failed to meet the
initial anchoring requirements had to meet the second set of requirements in less time than those who
had complied, thereby providing a kind of incentive
to move quickly on step one's basic anchoring.

Penalties for not complying with required seismic

rehabilitation requirements can be serious, but there
is a general reluctance to use them except as a last
resort. Most public policy in this specialized field
relies on obtaining at least grudging building owner
compliance by using realistic standards, providing
practical time limits,. offering independent appeals
processes, and trying to find incentives and subsidies. Nevertheless, the range of potential penalties
includes the nonissuance of permits until the plans
address seismic rehabilitation requirements, condemnation and removal of the structure under the special
provisions of "dangerous buildings" ordinances, issuance of court orders, and adding tax and other
lien-type penalties to nonconforming properties. Interestingly, not all penalties have to be govemmental. As conditions of a loan, some banks are requir-

Managing the Legal Issues of Seismic

Rehabilitation

Nature of the Problem: The very nature of seismic rehabilitation focuses on modifying existing
buildings - those built earlier and under different
rules. Therein lay the potential legal problems that
tend to cluster around the following:
e

Potential liability,

* Building owners' rights to due process,

Disclosure of known hazards,
The taking of private property and unwarranted
exercises of governmental police powers,

45

Chapter4

* Actions related to absentee landowners,

can be used to assess a design professional's knowledge of the state of the art in the field. Moreover,
while the specific guidelines considered here, the
NEHRP Guidelinesfor the Seismic Rehabilitation
of Buildings, were not prepared to be a "model
code," it would not be difficult for code-writing
organizations and building officials to adapt them
for such use. For example, the Guidelines would
become a de facto code if a building official used
them to accept or approve a proposed seismic rehabilitation project, especially if the proposer deviated from them without sound justification.

* The right of government to enact requirements

above those sufficient to protect life,
* Gifting of public funds,
* Foreclosure proceedings,
* Negligence,
* Sovereign immunity,
* Foreseeability and unreasonableness of risk versus providing protection,
* Interpretations of "acts of God,"

A "standard of practice" is more difficult to define

because its use as its determination requires extensive judgment and information. In general, a standard of practice is a yardstick against which to
measure or compare a practice or action. Everything else being equal, a user is expected in like
circumstances to provide a standard of practice
comparable to his/her peers.

* Discovery and statutes of repose,

* Causation and concurrent causation,
* Reasonableness of costs to carry out mandates,
and
* Status of regulatory codes, design procedures,
and similar materials and their use or enforcement as a standard of practice.

However, throughout these legal discussions is the

fundamental "reasonable person" principle. For
example, judgments would be made on what a
"reasonable person" would do or be expected to do
under the following illustrative circumstances: the
apparent probability that the harm-causing event
will occur, whether the person involved actually
knew or should have known the risk, the magnitude of the expected resulting harm, and the effort
required to institute proper precautions.

There are precedents for responding to a number

of these issues, but the fundamental principle is to
take only those actions that can be defended within
existing state law or local ordinances. It is an axiom of America, however, that anyone has the
right to sue anyone (despite some immunities);
therefore, legal challenges to seismic rehabilitation
should be expected.
Some working definitions are probably in order.
In general, a "building code" is formally adopted
legislation establishing standards and procedures
that regulate the design, construction, alteration,
and similar activities related to new and existing
buildings. As such, codes are the "law of the
land" in the adopting jurisdictions. "Guidelines,"
by contrast, serve multiple purposes, some of
which may have legal implications. They provide
users with peer-developed information about dealing with specific issues, in this case the seismic
rehabilitation of existing buildings. In this capacity, guidelines serve to help educate users, provide
them with a basis for taking appropriate actions,
and serve as a common reference. To the extent
that guidelines are widely and easily available, they

Typical Issues: Legal challenges to seismic rehabilitation programs tend to revolve around several
specific issues.
Can the localjurisdictionadopt and enforce regulations that requireowners to rehabilitatetheir
buildings when these very same buildings met
whatever standardswere in force at the time of
their construction? This question goes to the heart
of seismic rehabilitation as an issue of private cost
versus public benefit. Moreover, in many cases,
the state must be the adopting jurisdiction for any
code.
Can the jurisdictionadopt building standardsfor
existing buildings that are less stringentthan those
inforce for new buildings? A positive answer imM
46

Typical SocietalIssues in Seismic Rehabilitation

A study (Life Safety and Economic and Liability

Risks Associated .ith Strengthened Unreinforced
Masonry Buildings) completed in 1994 by the J. H.
Wiggins Company is worth quoting in part for it
provides particularly useful insights into real legal
issues - at least in the California context - that
arose following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
(pp. 124-130):

plies a dual level of safety - people in newer

buildings are safer than those in older buildings.
While perfect safety is impossible to achieve, some
types of older building perform better in earthquakes than others and, given the state of knowledge and practice of earthquake-resistant design,
every earthquake teaches new lessons (witness the
"steel frame buildings problem" after the 1994
Nonthridge earthquake). Ample justification can
be adduced to require existing buildings to be
strengthened for the common good. Comparable
examples include requiring the retroactive installation of fire sprinkler systems, fire-resistant doors,
and fire escapes.

Lawsuits that were filed in the aftermath of the

Loma Prieta earthquake established that building
owners and design professionals will be held accountable for damages and injuries as a result of
structural failures during an earthquake.... The
key to these large settlements was the fact that the
owners could not rebut the abundance of notice
they had concerning their buildings' structural defects and their failure to take remedial steps to mitigate the hazards presented by the buildings...
After Loma Prieta, all UMS. owners will be held
liable for failing to take corrective measures to,mitigate their buildings' hazardous condition. In addition, the owners' design professionals who have
reviewed these buildings may be brought into lawsuits, both as defendants and percipient witnesses.
... Litigation after the Loma Prieta earthquake
demonstrated that jurors clearly understand that,
under California law, codes are merely a minimum
standard. Thus, actual jury reaction has demonstrated that mere code compliance will not be a
sufficient defense to protect a property owner from
liability.... Building owners who have delayed
taking action to mitigate the hazards presented by
their building's lack of seismic resistance may be
faced with a claim of punitive damages if the
building causes injuries in an earthquake. An injured occupant or passerby may contend that the
owner had knowledge of his buildings hazardous
condition and was therefore guilty of willful and
conscious disregard for the rights and safety of others.... To avoid claims of malpractice, design
professionals must ensure that their work isdone in
accordance with the standards of the community in
which they practice....Therefore, if a design professional such as an architect or engineer designs a
retrofit (rehabilitation) plan using a lower level of
safety (such as is contained in many local ordinances), the design professional could ultimately face
a claim of liability for malpractice on the grounds
that they employed a lower standard than that used
in their community.

is the liability of design professionals and

contractorsperforming seismic rehabilitationwork
that does not (andoften cannot) meet the requirements ofthe currentcode inforcefor new buildings? Building codes sometimes contain triggers
that may require a building to be brought up to
current codes for new construction. Changes in
materials. technology, design philosophy, construction methods, and a host of other factors may make
it nearly impossible to both practically and economically upgrade a building to current standards.
Historic buildings are even more of a challenge,
but work on them is often governed by special
codes and standards.
MWat

What happ~ens if the rehabilitatedbuilding is damaged or causes death and injury in afuture earthquake? This question anticipates that rehabilitation
may prove at least partially ineffective, so great
care must be taken to clarify the program objective
as being to reduce - not eliminate -- the potential
loss of life and injury in an earthquake. Thus, if a
rehabilitated building suffers less damage in an
earthquake than it would have before being
strengthened, even though it might be a total economic loss, it could be judged to have performed
adequately. Moreover, the effectiveness of the
rehabilitation most likely will be greater in smaller
and perhaps more frequent earthquakes than in the
very rare great event where the rehabilitated building could suffer serious damage but probably still
less than it would have without any strengthening.

47

Chapter 4

Solving the Problem: State laws and local ordinances plus precedent-setting decisions from elsewhere define how the legal issues related to seismic
rehabilitation can be addressed in any given situation
or locality. The key to minimizing legal problems
and potentially lengthy delays in implementing seismic rehabilitation programs is to include legal counsel from the very outset.
Counsel will be heavily involved in preparing seismic rehabilitation ordinance language; explaining its
provisions within the context of existing law; defending its principles and procedures throughout the
policy formulation, adoption, and implementation
phases of the seismic rehabilitation program; and
answering any challenges that arise.
State and local governments can adopt ordinances
and programs that require improvements to existing
buildings for reasons of public safety. In general,
the courts and legislatures understand that changes in
technology, materials, and social needs (e.g., energy
conservation and providing access for handicapped
people) are legitimate public concerns and that
building owners can be required under specified
conditions to modify their structures accordingly.
The reality is that not everyone is equally safe.
While it is important to narrow the gap, practical
technical, political, and economic reasons can be offered for not requiring existing buildings to meet all
of the requirements for new buildings. Clearly, the
precedent has been set for state and local governments to adopt and enforce less-than-current-code
requirements for existing buildings. Uniform Code
for Building Conservationis a good example as are
the court-tested seismic rehabilitation ordinances of
Los Angeles and other communities. For a seismic
rehabilitation program to be defensible, it must be
demonstrated is that the requirements are for public
benefit; are reasonable; are uniformly and fairly applied; and include provisions for exceptions, delays,
or the use of equivalent alternative measures.

professionals is whether or not they are exposed to

liability or criminal charges if a seismically rehabilitated building does not meet the current code's
requirements for new construction. Most believe it
is commendable to improve a building, and thereby
increase safety even though they could not bring it
up to the current code governing new construction.
In general, however, the best defense is due diligence, adherence to requirements, a practical standard of care, and a test of reasonableness. These
seem to be the issues around which most buildingrelated controversies arise.
As noted earlier, partly to help remove this barrier,
California enacted SB 445 which relieved local
governments and design and construction personnel
from liability when doing seismic rehabilitation work
under less stringent standards than those required for
new buildings. However, this immunity was not extended to cases where negligence or other unreasonable practices were found. Thus, while it is easy to
provide general protection, the challenges will be on
a case-by-case basis.
While earthquakes are natural events, it is humandesigned and -built structures that cause the casualties and property losses. If losses are experienced in
seismically rehabilitated buildings as they very well
may be, it will be important to show that the project
adhered to the requirements and that the work was
properly performed. For example, seismically
strengthened URM buildings in Los Angeles sustained damage in the Northridge earthquake and,
even though the event fortuitously occurred early in
the morning on a holiday, it is clear that in most
cases the strengthening measures prevented more
serious losses of life and injuries. In other words,
they achieved the life-safety objectives of the program.
The bibliography in Chapter 6 includes some legal
references directly related to seismic safety and
building rehabilitation that will help the reader understand the general nature of the issues and determine when legal counsel should be consulted. The
context of the particular policy decision or project
will greatly determine the applicable legal issues and
strategies for dealing with them.

Design professionals and contractors worry a great

deal about being held liable for the performance of
buildings (and often pay high premiums for errors
and omissions insurance). A concern of some design

48

Typical SocietalIssues in Seismic Rehabilitation

CHOOSING THE TARGETS: SINGLE

BUILDINGS, NEIGHBORHOODS, OR
CLASSES OF BUILDINGS

mically strengthening the former Hotel Utah, now

used -as a church office building. Questions that
most likely will arise include the following.

Nature of the Problem: A strategic question that

Are wve going tofocus on classes or types of buildings, orspecific uses or occupanciesor on one or
more geographicareas? While every building is
unique, cities differ as well. The amply documented
poor earthquake performance of URM structures
combined with a post-1971 political opening in Los
Angeles yielded the Division 88 seismic rehabilitation program focusing on that particular type of
structure. Following the 1994 Northridge earth.quake. the same approach was taken in the ordinance
requiring that seismic improvements be made to
early tilt-up concrete wall buildings (buildings
whose poor performance had first been documented
in the 1971 San Fernando earthquake). Since the
Northridge event, the city of Los Angeles has been
voluntarily strengthening several of its fire stations,
providing an example of a use focus. Following its
damaging 1969 earthquakes, Santa Rosa, California, partly because it already had a bounded redevelopment project area, city passed a local ordinance that required the evaluation and strengthening of several types of buildings in the older down,town area. Therefore, Santa Rosa adopted a program based on a geographic scope.

must always be answered when structuring a seismic

rehabilitation program involves how narrow or broad
will the scope be. The answer has significant impli*cationsfor the policies and actions required, the
standards to be applied, the availability of the skills
needed, and other factors. Individual buildings can
be dealt with on case-by-case basis, but prescribing
seismic rehabilitation efforts for areas of town (e.g.,
Pioneer Square in Seattle), for specific types of
building, (e.g., pre-1976 tilt-up wall structures in Los
Angeles), or for specific occupancies (e.g., theaters
or apartment buildings) is central to defining the rehabilitation program's objective, methods, and processes. The scope decision also will define the community interests that are affected by the decision
(e.g., the local "'apartmentowners and managers association' if rehabilitating apartment buildings is to
be the objective).
TypicalIssues: Several issues should be considered
in choosing the focus of a seismic rehabilitation program. In fact, one should expect that, for a variety of
local reasons, the focus of the final seismic rehabilitation program may change during the program design and adoption phases. For example, early and
powerful opposition from theater and apartment
building owners and church leaders to an early version of the Los Angeles URMI seismic rehabilitation
ordinance (which attempted to focus on high-occupancy uses) actually caused proponents to broaden
the scope to all URM buildings because the apartment, theater, and church representatives complained
about being "singled out" unfairly. It also matters
greatly if the program focuses solely on government
buildings or affects the private sector as well.
In Salt Lake City, in addition to wanting to preserve
the important and historic City and County Administration Building by renovating and seismically
strengthening it (including a new seismic isolation
foundation system), city officials hoped that the public project would provide an example to private owners of responsible actions taken on potentially hazardous buildings. The Church of the Latter Day
Saints contributed to this process by voluntarily seis-

49

What is the inventory of the targeted buildings

{e.g.,what is the number of buildingpotentially
involved) ? This is both a technical and strategiclpolitical question. Collecting building inventory information can consume time and money. It
may come as a surprise, but most building departments and other city agencies have not conducted a
census of the community building stock. An exception was the city of Los Angeles, where officials were fortunate to have had a good census of
its URM buildings because decades earlier the city
had enacted an ordinance requiring the strengthening or removal of dangerous parapets and file information on each of the subject buildings was
kept. Another exception was Santa Rosa, California, which had an accurate inventory of the buildings in the downtown redevelopment area because
of the need to examine various occupancies and
uses during the planning process.

Chapter4

vice of specialists in historic preservation is essential early in the definition of any large rehabilitation effort.

Buildings can be structurally tricky and, at some

point, the specific characteristics of a building must
be determined before seismic rehabilitation plans
can be prepared. Since the earthquake resistance
of a building depends largely on its frame (which is
hidden from view) and because drawings usually
are not available (especially for old buildings), real
analytical challenges ensue, but the Guidelines documents may be of some help in this respect. Facades and earlier renovations may further confuse
the issue. Engineers often talk about being surprised - usually negatively - when they move
from preliminary "windshield survey" data (to help
establish an estimate of the number of buildings of
a specific class) to conducting site-specific tests to
collect information about particular buildings.

The issue of density and the economic characteristics of the residents and businesses are important
factors. For example, because of its very high
population density, large low income housing
stock, cultural identity, political importance and
numerous small shops, San Francisco's Chinatown,
which consists of the city's many poorly constructed post-1906 earthquake URM buildings,
poses an enormous socioeconomic challenge to
seismic rehabilitation. On the other hand, the fashionable, upscale, high income, but still densely
populated area of Georgetown in Washington,
D.C., would pose different socioeconomic and
political problems if seismic rehabilitation
measures were proposed for that or similar areas.

This issue relates directly back to the conflict

model. Except for perhaps gaining voter approval
for a bond issue to seismically rehabilitate some
city building (e.g., fire stations in Salt Lake City or
an historic city hall, in Oakland, California), the
number of structures is important to understanding
the size of the proposed program, the resources
needed, and the interests that may be mobilized. It
really matters if the scope is a few buildings out of
perhaps thousands or 50 percent of a town's commercial downtown area, which was the case in
Oroville, California, after its 1975 earthquake. In
the Oroville case, the collection of inventory data
was easy, but the mobilization of the opposition
represented by the Oroville Property Owners Association which was composed of leading members
of the town's commercial and political structure,
effectively defeated any meaningful seismic rehabilitation program.

What does localpoliticalexperience indicateabout

which community interests will mobilize around
which choice andhow will their influence befelt?
Throughout this discussion it has been mentioned
in passing that seismic rehabilitation programs,
which change the rules from when the affected
buildings were first constructed, are capable of
mobilizing various interests. These interest will
vary from community to community, and the challenge is to anticipate which interests will mobilize,
what initial positions they might take, and what can
be done through incentives, compromise and a perceived fair due process to accommodate their concerns.
Public officials are well aware that hearings, town
meetings, and other democratic mechanisms attract
more opponents than supporters; therefore, one
should not overlook the need to mobilize allies of
seismic rehabilitation. Local geologists can help
explain the threat, local engineers can help answer
technical questions, local construction industry
representatives can talk about jobs, local community groups of many different kinds can discuss the
positive benefits of revitalization, and other local
advocacy groups may be available to help balance
the debate. In addition, the local media can be
quite influential by thoroughly covering and supporting a proposed seismic rehabilitation program

Are there any special characteristicsof the structures such as designatedhistorical buildings, high
density, low-income housing or others? The individual complexity of communities must be accounted for in designing seismic rehabilitation programs. Special considerations must be given, for
example, to those buildings that have been designated as historic, and an increasing complication is
the designation of local "historic districts" (e.g., as
San Diego's Gaslamp District or Claremont California's older commercial area) that often contain
the area's oldest structures. In such cases, the ad-

50

Typical Societal Issues in Se ismic Rehabilitation

(e.g., Los Angeles Times), reporting but taking no

position (e.g., Oroville Mercury Register), or paying virtually no attention to the issue (e.g., Oakland ribune following the 1989 Loma Prieta
earthquake). Note that "local" is used frequently
in this context because there is a common tendency
in public forums to discount visiting experts "who
don't have to live here. " Local champions are better when facing local opponents.

comes complex when one mitigative action such as

raising a building for flood protection purposes increases its exposure to earthquake damage if the
work done is not properly designed to avoid both
threats.

Will seismic rehabilitationbe the primaryfocus or

will it be an element of some broadercommunity
program (e.g., a comprehensive redevelopment
programfor a designatedarea)? There are examples of both strategies: Los Angeles simply moved
on seismic rehabilitation of 13KM buildings; Santa
Rosa added seismic rehabilitation to the upgrading
requirements for its downtown redevelopment
area; and the Clayton, Missouri, school district
listed seismic rehabilitation as only one of the
many reasons for asking the voters to support a
bond issue. In the post-Northridge setting, Los
Angeles' Community Redevelopment Agency
(CRA) defined several project areas that will include seismic rehabilitation as one element of an
overall improvement strategy for the designated
areas. Consequ ently, readers are urged to give
careful consideration to evaluating the alternative
strategies available to achieve seismic rehabilitation.

To which other hazardsis the site subject? This

question is largely one of determining what hazards
assessment information exists, where it is located,
and whether the quality of the information is adequate for use in a specific rehabilitation project. For
example, the City of Seattle negotiates the extent of
rehabilitation of an existing building in which the
goal is to achieve a balance of life-safety improvements. Along with seismic improvements - which
may not be the m ost urgent need - could be those
related to improved exiting, and fire resistance (e.g.,
the addition of fire sprinklers and alarms).

Typical-Issues: Several questions should be addressed in a multihazard mitigation context when

considering rehabilitation of a building for purposes
of seismic protection:

Are there any governmentalt property insurance, or

otherrequirementsgoverning rehabilitationto mitigatefuture losses? This question can be answered
only by checking with the governing (permitting)
local jurisdiction or lending or insuring institutions
about what, if any, requirements exist. The design
team should not overlook the requirements of independently governed special districts such as flood
control agencies, fire protection districts, and historic
districts. State and federal requirements might exist,
and the local jurisdictions often provide information
about or referrals to other responsible agencies.

OPTIMIZING MULTIHAZARD
MITIGATION TO REDUCE RISK
Nature of the Problem: Mitigation is the prevention
of future losses. While seismically rehabilitating
buildings will help accomplish that goal for earthquakes, buildings also are exposed to such other hazards as river and coastal floods, hurricanes and high
winds, fire, and tornadoes. Moreover, because the
rehabilitation of existing buildings extends their
lives, it increases the probabilities that the buildings
will experience the effects of the other hazards.
Whenever possible, therefore, it is in the national
interest that rehabilitation include measures to better
protect the structure from the multiple hazards to
which it is exposed over its (rehabilitation-extended)
lifetime. Note, however, that overall mitigation be-

How can we ensure throughthe projectplanning

and designphase that effective mitigationmeasures
are addressedandthatpotential conflicts betwleen
various corrective measuresare resolved? This
becomes a key question for the design and construction team.
Are there anyfinancialor other incentives to help
achieve multihazardnifigation, and what arethe
benefits and costs ofdoing so? The answers to this
two-part question relate directly to the cost of the
rehabilitation project. On one hand, it needs to be
determined if incentives, subsidies, or other
measures exist to help offset the costs of hazard miti-

51

Chapter4

organizations may require attention to hazard mitigation as a condition of their support. For example, a
well-known western bank explicitly requires that
environmental, asbestos, and earthquake hazards be
assessed as a condition of a property loan. The key
is to ensure that the question is thoroughly researched by the design team.

gation. On the other hand, benefit-cost analyses can

be done to help determine if the mitigation of existing hazards will, given the probable exposure to future events, be a worthy investment.
Solving the Problem: A fundamental principle to
observe in multihazard mitigation is to ensure that
the project planning and design process addresses
mitigation as part of the rehabilitation project. There
may be requirements to do so (e.g., laws requiring
the installation of fire sprinkler systems due to substantial changes in the use and occupancy of a building), but others may address hazard mitigation voluntarily as part of their decision to protect their investment, to increase market value, or to provide a
rapid return to operations. A few specific suggestions are discussed below.

Mitigation efforts may disclose apparent conflicts

between effective measures to deal with multiple
hazards. Cutting holes in structural walls to add fire
sprinkler systems may weaken the wall from an
earthquake perspective or the pipes may break during an earthquake such as happened to an Oakland,
California, building in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake because rigid fire sprinkler piping crossed
through a seismic separation joint between two parts
of what appeared to be, but was not, one building.
Consequently, it is very important that the design
team identify and resolve in the project planning
stage potential conflicts between mitigation measures. This may require expert advice from practitioners in each field and their involvement from the
very beginning of the process so that each understands the overall performance objectives and plans.
They can then design their elements so as to minimize potential problems. Such coordination can virtually eliminate conflicts between mitigation actions
taken for different purposes, especially now that the
Guidelines documents are available for use in evaluating the seismic aspects of building safety.

Obtaining information about the exposure of a given

site or building to various hazards is critical to taking
effective mitigation measures. Yet, the availability
and quality of such information varies greatly from
area to area, and it is very difficult to pull all the information from various sources together. For example, flood control agencies have maps showing potential inundation areas under various flood scenarios; city and county planning departments in California often have hazards information as part of their required "Safety Elements"; geography and engineering departments of colleges and universities have
their own collections; consultants may have done
studies for nearby sites; and state and federal agencies such as the Federal Emergency FEMA and the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) can be useful
providers of hazards information. However, it is the
project design team that will have to assimilate and
synthesize this information to ensure that it is adequately addressed early in the rehabilitation project
planning phase.

Direct and indirect financial incentives may exist to

promote multiple hazard mitigation. Their existence,
however, is not universal and will have to be determined early in project planning. The small city of
Torrance, California, for example, established an
assessment district to help finance the seismic rehabilitation of older buildings within the district's
boundaries. As noted earlier, state law in California
excludes seismic improvements made to buildings
from being reassessed for property tax purposes.
These concepts could be expanded to include other
types of safety-related rehabilitation. Other possibilities include bond funds, property exchanges, and
benefits from redevelopment programs.

While floodplain regulations are the most widely

known from a national perspective, many states and
localities have specific site preparation and construction requirements designed to reduce the exposure to
various threats. In addition, there are sufficient examples to show that property financing and insuring

52

Chapter 5
APPLICATIONS SCENARIOS

Every seismic rehabilitation project occurs because someone has chosen or been required to
modify a building. Because "every building has
its own story," actual seismic rehabilitation projects depend upon the local societal and organizational contexts in which they take place.
While the purpose of Chapter 3 was to present
three alternative models to help the user of the
Guidelines documents select a path through the
forest of general issues related to seismic rehabilitation. this chapter narrows the focus and
offers the reader a set of relevant scenarios that
illustrate specific "typical" situations and highlight key factors important to achieving seismic
rehabilitation. Although many variations are
possible, these three scenarios (a private initiative. a local regulatory approach, and a professional service request) represent common seismic rehabilitation motivations and processes.

The third scenario places a private consulting

structural engineer, who knows little about
earthquake engineering, in the difficult situation
of needing to respond to his/her client by determining if any of the client's multiple properties
in the Midwest is susceptible to earthquake
damage. If so, the consulting structural engineer
is to recommend whether any or all of the client's buildings should be seismically rehabilitated.

SCENARIO ONE: TIE PRIVATE

COMPANY
Situation
As the corporate facilities manager. you are responsible for all property acquisition, leasing. construction,
remodeling, operations, and maintenance of the company's buildings. Your employer oowns 16 buildings
of various ages, sizes, and types of construction nationwide (Los Angeles, 5; Albuquerque, 1; Seattle, 2;
St. Louis, 3; Charleston, 1; Baltimore, 2; and New
Haven, 2).

The first scenario focuses on a private voluntary

decision. The facilities manager of a company
owning 16 buildings in various cities across the
United States received the Guidelinesdocuments and wishes to determine if all or any of
his buildings are possibly hazardous in earthquakes. If this proves to be the case, the facilities manager will recommend whether a seismic
rehabilitation process be initiated with the company's own funds.

Because of your position as facilities manager, you

recently attended a workshop on seismic rehabilitation of existing buildings and you received the
Guidelines documents. As a result, you became
concerned about the potential earthquake performance of your company's buildings. The chief
executive officer (CEO) has authorized you to evaluate the earthquake risk and likely earthquake performance of the 16 buildings. Your task is to assess the
risk and likely earthquake performance of the 16
buildings and make seismic rehabilitation recommendations (Nvhich include doing nothing) to the CEO
and possibly to the -company's board of directors.

The second scenario addresses the public policy

dilemma of a city manager whose chief building
official received a copy of the Guidelines
documents. After review and conference, they
jointly decide to initiate the preparation of a proposed mandatory seismic rehabilitation ordinance for the city council's consideration.

53

Chapter5

* Determining what penalties external to the company may be imposed for not choosing to rehabilitate.

Considerations
Many factors have to be taken into account in your
report which will influence the decision to invest or
not invest in the seismic rehabilitation of the buildings. You may have to collect some information
from other company units. Some of the issues you
need to consider are:

* Assessing the extent and depth of commitment to

seismic rehabilitation of the company's top management and the board of directors; and
* Judging how and where seismic rehabilitation will
fit in with and help meet the company's overall
business objectives and priorities.

* The geographic distribution of objective earthquake risk;

You are also aware that operational considerations

must be factored into the decision about how to deal
with the earthquake risk to the company's buildings
by:

* The expected loads from the most likely seismic

events;
* The probability of those events likely to occur
(e.g., the planning horizon);

* Locating design professionals and contractors capable of performing seismic risk evaluations and
the rehabilitation work;

* The expected performance of the buildings from

the expected earthquake loads;
* Competing needs for the funds and the trade-offs
between short-term profits and long-term asset
protection, including inventory and equipment
values;

* Determining if a seismic rehabilitation project will

trigger requirements to comply with other local
building code provisions that could add significantly to the costs and increase business interruption (e.g., disabled access, plumbing, electrical,
life safety, asbestos removal, and energy conservation requirements);

* The current status of capital replacement timetables and the flexibility of those timetables;
* Current business planning that could affect shortterm and long-term use of the buildings (e.g.,
changes in product lines and markets, rates of facility obsolescence, and the existence or nonexistence of functional redundancy in other "safer"
locations); and

* Estimating the costs of permits and inspections

including the timeliness and difficulty of the process; and
* Assessing the value to the company of enhanced
visibility and the goodwill associated with public
knowledge that the company has engaged in a
program of voluntary seismic rehabilitation of its
buildings.

* The benefits and costs associated with seismic

rehabilitation.
You are aware that implementation of a voluntary
seismic rehabilitation program within the company
will require:

SCENARIO TWO: LOCAL

GOVERNMENT POLICY DECISION

* Conducting a formal comparative risk evaluation

and an initial screening or rapid assessment of the
buildings;

Situation
You are a city manager and generally aware that your
community might experience periodic damaging
earthquakes. Your chief building official has informed you that he has received and studied the recently issued Guidelines documents by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency. The building official informs you that your community has two classes
of exceptionally vulnerable buildings -- unreinforced

* Developing an upgrading program that addresses

various levels of desired performance;
* Specifying alternative design strategies to achieve
those desired performance levels;
* Determining whether there are financial incentives external to the company that might be available for seismic rehabilitation;

54

ApplicationsScenarios

masonry (UREA) and early (pre-1973) concrete tilt-up

light industrial buildings.

* The need for rapid improvement of your staffs

technical abilities.

As the city's chief executive officer, you agree with

the building official that an appropriate action would
be to prepare an ordinance for city council consideration. The proposed ordinance would require the
owners of these two identified classes of building to
seismically rehabilitate them and to use the Guidelines to meet the ordinance's requirements. In effect,
this course of action means that you and the building
official have to prepare the proposed ordinance;
serve as the city's lead!staff members for advising the
council on the technical, socioeconomic, and other
issues likely to arise if the ordinance is passed; and
be ultimately responsible for enforcement of the
"Community Earthquake Rehabilitation Ordinance."

From, a program implementation perspective, you

will have to address several other points including:

As city manager, your experience tells you that regardlessofthe merits of a proposed ordinance to require the strengthening of URM and early tilt-up
buildings, enacting and implementing it will be highly controversial. You also know that for the ordinance to both pass and then be effectively implemented, the city will need political leaders and -acoalition of supporters behind the proposal.

* For what period oftime owners will be exempt

from additional retroactive measures; and

The minimum level of compliance;

e

The square foot costs and how costs will be

shared, if at all, by building owners and the city;

What other upgrade requirements will be triggered;

* The capabilities of city staff and whether staff will
need to be increased and how;
* The appeal and arbitration procedures;
* The length of time for compliance;

The process and cost for handling noncomplying

buildings (e.g., through condemnation and demolition).

Considerations
You and the building official have to be prepared to
explain to the city council, media, and the public several important items:
* The earthquake threat to the community;

* What other communities facing a comparable

threat are doing about the problem;

Interestingly, this scenario demonstrates why jurisdictions often use "nonmandatory" alternatives to
achieve the goal of seismic rehabilitation. For instance, an ordinance might only require that owners
of buildings in the two suspect classes have licensed
architects or structural engineers evaluate the buildings and file with the city reports that then become a
matter of public record. This strategy could result in
the quasivoluntary strengthening of buildings because the owners possess "guilty knowledge" of the
susceptibility of their buildings, knowledge that
could raise questions of liability associated with an
existing hazard should a damaging earthquake occur.

* The community-wide benefits of avoiding future

losses, the costs of doing nothing, and the costs of

rehabilitation;

SCENARIO THREE: THE CONSULTING

ENGINEER'S DILEMMA

* Plans to address the unique problem of historic

buildings;

Situation

* The capabilities of local design professionals and

contractors to meet the provisions of the
ordinance;

You are a consulting engineer in a small midwestern

town located in a low seismic zone. Because ofyour
professional interests, however, you are aware of specialist peers in the field of "earthquake engineering."
Moreover, you are aware that the New Madrid fault

Ways to ameliorate the dislocations and economic

effects caused by rehabilitation; and

55

Chapter5

zone, which has received a lot of publicity of late, is

about 200 miles away.
While a particular concern for earthquakes has not
been part of your lengthy practice, one of your best
long-term clients has raised the earthquake issue with
you. Following the client's attendance at a seminar
on New Madrid area earthquakes at the University of
Memphis' Center for Earthquake Research and Information where she obtained a copy of the newly released Guidelines documents, your client is concerned about the earthquake resistance of her apartment and commercial buildings located in Memphis,
St. Louis, Kansas City, and several other smaller cities in the same general area. The client is concerned
about the area's earthquake risk and her responsibilities and liabilities as a property owner.

Considerations
This situation is a real dilemma for both you as the
consulting engineer and your client. Some of your
key considerations include:
1. Getting more exact risk information;
2. Defining other skills needed to augment your own
and their availability;
3. Determining if the cities where the buildings are
located require seismic rehabilitation and if so, to
what level;
4. Determining whether other code requirements will
be triggered by work undertaken to seismically
strengthen the buildings; and
5. Determining, now that you are a "knowing person," what, if any, liabilities are associated with
the earthquake performance of your client's buildings.

56

Further considerations relate to evaluating client's

properties; establishing priorities based on risk, occupancy, function, and other factors; determining acceptable levels of performance under expected
events; designing effective rehabilitation schemes;
accurately estimating costs; determining whether
seismic rehabilitation can somehow be linked to the
owner's general long-term property improvement
plans; and deciding whether advising your client to
sell the properties is a viable solution. Clients seldom understand that there are no guarantees in earthquake engineering and especially in the seismic rehabilitation of existing buildings. The consulting engineer who oversees a seismic rehabilitation project
always has lingering concern about what will happen
when an earthquake does occur and a rehabilitated
building does not perform to the client's expectations.
For example, a California Seismic Safety Commission report (p. 49) noted that "many engineers view
the performance of retrofitted buildings in the Northridge earthquake positively" but "many owners were
unaware that a retrofitted (rehabilitated) building
could still be damaged to the point of not being economically repairable." One way to lessen this concern is for the design professional and the client to
understand that, just as with the performance of new
buildings, the effectiveness of seismic rehabilitation
will vary with the severity of the earthquake. To illustrate this point, FEMA's benefit-cost volumes note
that the anticipated effectiveness of an investment in
seismic rehabilitation varies with the intensity of an
earthquake. The greatest economic benefit derives
from rehabilitation measures that perform best in
lower magnitude but more frequent events. For example, rehabilitating a common low-rise tilt-up
building is expected to reduce damages by 50 percent
at modified Mercalli intensity (MMI) VI but only 30
percent at MMI XII.

Chapter 5
APPLICATIONS SCENARIOS

Every seismic rehabilitation project occurs because someone has chosen or been required to
modify a building. Because "every building has
its own story," actual seismic rehabilitation projects depend upon the local societal and organizational contexts in which they take place.
While the purpose of Chapter 3 was to present
three alternative models to help the user of the
Guidelines documents select a path through the
forest of general issues related to seismic rehabilitation. this chapter narrows the focus and
offers the reader a set of relevant scenarios that
illustrate specific "typical" situations and highlight key factors important to achieving seismic
rehabilitation. Although many variations are
possible, these three scenarios (a private initiative. a local regulatory approach, and a professional service request) represent common seismic rehabilitation motivations and processes.

The third scenario places a private consulting

structural engineer, who knows little about
earthquake engineering, in the difficult situation
of needing to respond to his/her client by determining if any of the client's multiple properties
in the Midwest is susceptible to earthquake
damage. If so, the consulting structural engineer
is to recommend whether any or all of the client's buildings should be seismically rehabilitated.

SCENARIO ONE: TIE PRIVATE

COMPANY
Situation
As the corporate facilities manager. you are responsible for all property acquisition, leasing. construction,
remodeling, operations, and maintenance of the company's buildings. Your employer oowns 16 buildings
of various ages, sizes, and types of construction nationwide (Los Angeles, 5; Albuquerque, 1; Seattle, 2;
St. Louis, 3; Charleston, 1; Baltimore, 2; and New
Haven, 2).

The first scenario focuses on a private voluntary

decision. The facilities manager of a company
owning 16 buildings in various cities across the
United States received the Guidelinesdocuments and wishes to determine if all or any of
his buildings are possibly hazardous in earthquakes. If this proves to be the case, the facilities manager will recommend whether a seismic
rehabilitation process be initiated with the company's own funds.

Because of your position as facilities manager, you

recently attended a workshop on seismic rehabilitation of existing buildings and you received the
Guidelines documents. As a result, you became
concerned about the potential earthquake performance of your company's buildings. The chief
executive officer (CEO) has authorized you to evaluate the earthquake risk and likely earthquake performance of the 16 buildings. Your task is to assess the
risk and likely earthquake performance of the 16
buildings and make seismic rehabilitation recommendations (Nvhich include doing nothing) to the CEO
and possibly to the -company's board of directors.

The second scenario addresses the public policy

dilemma of a city manager whose chief building
official received a copy of the Guidelines
documents. After review and conference, they
jointly decide to initiate the preparation of a proposed mandatory seismic rehabilitation ordinance for the city council's consideration.

53

Chapter5

* Determining what penalties external to the company may be imposed for not choosing to rehabilitate.

Considerations
Many factors have to be taken into account in your
report which will influence the decision to invest or
not invest in the seismic rehabilitation of the buildings. You may have to collect some information
from other company units. Some of the issues you
need to consider are:

* Assessing the extent and depth of commitment to

seismic rehabilitation of the company's top management and the board of directors; and
* Judging how and where seismic rehabilitation will
fit in with and help meet the company's overall
business objectives and priorities.

* The geographic distribution of objective earthquake risk;

You are also aware that operational considerations

must be factored into the decision about how to deal
with the earthquake risk to the company's buildings
by:

* The expected loads from the most likely seismic

events;
* The probability of those events likely to occur
(e.g., the planning horizon);

* Locating design professionals and contractors capable of performing seismic risk evaluations and
the rehabilitation work;

* The expected performance of the buildings from

the expected earthquake loads;
* Competing needs for the funds and the trade-offs
between short-term profits and long-term asset
protection, including inventory and equipment
values;

* Determining if a seismic rehabilitation project will

trigger requirements to comply with other local
building code provisions that could add significantly to the costs and increase business interruption (e.g., disabled access, plumbing, electrical,
life safety, asbestos removal, and energy conservation requirements);

* The current status of capital replacement timetables and the flexibility of those timetables;
* Current business planning that could affect shortterm and long-term use of the buildings (e.g.,
changes in product lines and markets, rates of facility obsolescence, and the existence or nonexistence of functional redundancy in other "safer"
locations); and

* Estimating the costs of permits and inspections

including the timeliness and difficulty of the process; and
* Assessing the value to the company of enhanced
visibility and the goodwill associated with public
knowledge that the company has engaged in a
program of voluntary seismic rehabilitation of its
buildings.

* The benefits and costs associated with seismic

rehabilitation.
You are aware that implementation of a voluntary
seismic rehabilitation program within the company
will require:

SCENARIO TWO: LOCAL

GOVERNMENT POLICY DECISION

* Conducting a formal comparative risk evaluation

and an initial screening or rapid assessment of the
buildings;

Situation
You are a city manager and generally aware that your
community might experience periodic damaging
earthquakes. Your chief building official has informed you that he has received and studied the recently issued Guidelines documents by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency. The building official informs you that your community has two classes
of exceptionally vulnerable buildings -- unreinforced

* Developing an upgrading program that addresses

various levels of desired performance;
* Specifying alternative design strategies to achieve
those desired performance levels;
* Determining whether there are financial incentives external to the company that might be available for seismic rehabilitation;

54

ApplicationsScenarios

masonry (UREA) and early (pre-1973) concrete tilt-up

light industrial buildings.

* The need for rapid improvement of your staffs

technical abilities.

As the city's chief executive officer, you agree with

the building official that an appropriate action would
be to prepare an ordinance for city council consideration. The proposed ordinance would require the
owners of these two identified classes of building to
seismically rehabilitate them and to use the Guidelines to meet the ordinance's requirements. In effect,
this course of action means that you and the building
official have to prepare the proposed ordinance;
serve as the city's lead!staff members for advising the
council on the technical, socioeconomic, and other
issues likely to arise if the ordinance is passed; and
be ultimately responsible for enforcement of the
"Community Earthquake Rehabilitation Ordinance."

From, a program implementation perspective, you

will have to address several other points including:

As city manager, your experience tells you that regardlessofthe merits of a proposed ordinance to require the strengthening of URM and early tilt-up
buildings, enacting and implementing it will be highly controversial. You also know that for the ordinance to both pass and then be effectively implemented, the city will need political leaders and -acoalition of supporters behind the proposal.

* For what period oftime owners will be exempt

from additional retroactive measures; and

The minimum level of compliance;

e

The square foot costs and how costs will be

shared, if at all, by building owners and the city;

What other upgrade requirements will be triggered;

* The capabilities of city staff and whether staff will
need to be increased and how;
* The appeal and arbitration procedures;
* The length of time for compliance;

The process and cost for handling noncomplying

buildings (e.g., through condemnation and demolition).

Considerations
You and the building official have to be prepared to
explain to the city council, media, and the public several important items:
* The earthquake threat to the community;

* What other communities facing a comparable

threat are doing about the problem;

Interestingly, this scenario demonstrates why jurisdictions often use "nonmandatory" alternatives to
achieve the goal of seismic rehabilitation. For instance, an ordinance might only require that owners
of buildings in the two suspect classes have licensed
architects or structural engineers evaluate the buildings and file with the city reports that then become a
matter of public record. This strategy could result in
the quasivoluntary strengthening of buildings because the owners possess "guilty knowledge" of the
susceptibility of their buildings, knowledge that
could raise questions of liability associated with an
existing hazard should a damaging earthquake occur.

* The community-wide benefits of avoiding future

losses, the costs of doing nothing, and the costs of

rehabilitation;

SCENARIO THREE: THE CONSULTING

ENGINEER'S DILEMMA

* Plans to address the unique problem of historic

buildings;

Situation

* The capabilities of local design professionals and

contractors to meet the provisions of the
ordinance;

You are a consulting engineer in a small midwestern

town located in a low seismic zone. Because ofyour
professional interests, however, you are aware of specialist peers in the field of "earthquake engineering."
Moreover, you are aware that the New Madrid fault

Ways to ameliorate the dislocations and economic

effects caused by rehabilitation; and

55

Chapter5

zone, which has received a lot of publicity of late, is

about 200 miles away.
While a particular concern for earthquakes has not
been part of your lengthy practice, one of your best
long-term clients has raised the earthquake issue with
you. Following the client's attendance at a seminar
on New Madrid area earthquakes at the University of
Memphis' Center for Earthquake Research and Information where she obtained a copy of the newly released Guidelines documents, your client is concerned about the earthquake resistance of her apartment and commercial buildings located in Memphis,
St. Louis, Kansas City, and several other smaller cities in the same general area. The client is concerned
about the area's earthquake risk and her responsibilities and liabilities as a property owner.

Considerations
This situation is a real dilemma for both you as the
consulting engineer and your client. Some of your
key considerations include:
1. Getting more exact risk information;
2. Defining other skills needed to augment your own
and their availability;
3. Determining if the cities where the buildings are
located require seismic rehabilitation and if so, to
what level;
4. Determining whether other code requirements will
be triggered by work undertaken to seismically
strengthen the buildings; and
5. Determining, now that you are a "knowing person," what, if any, liabilities are associated with
the earthquake performance of your client's buildings.

56

Further considerations relate to evaluating client's

properties; establishing priorities based on risk, occupancy, function, and other factors; determining acceptable levels of performance under expected
events; designing effective rehabilitation schemes;
accurately estimating costs; determining whether
seismic rehabilitation can somehow be linked to the
owner's general long-term property improvement
plans; and deciding whether advising your client to
sell the properties is a viable solution. Clients seldom understand that there are no guarantees in earthquake engineering and especially in the seismic rehabilitation of existing buildings. The consulting engineer who oversees a seismic rehabilitation project
always has lingering concern about what will happen
when an earthquake does occur and a rehabilitated
building does not perform to the client's expectations.
For example, a California Seismic Safety Commission report (p. 49) noted that "many engineers view
the performance of retrofitted buildings in the Northridge earthquake positively" but "many owners were
unaware that a retrofitted (rehabilitated) building
could still be damaged to the point of not being economically repairable." One way to lessen this concern is for the design professional and the client to
understand that, just as with the performance of new
buildings, the effectiveness of seismic rehabilitation
will vary with the severity of the earthquake. To illustrate this point, FEMA's benefit-cost volumes note
that the anticipated effectiveness of an investment in
seismic rehabilitation varies with the intensity of an
earthquake. The greatest economic benefit derives
from rehabilitation measures that perform best in
lower magnitude but more frequent events. For example, rehabilitating a common low-rise tilt-up
building is expected to reduce damages by 50 percent
at modified Mercalli intensity (MMI) VI but only 30
percent at MMI XII.

Chapter 6
SELECTED ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY AND
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES

The various "societal" (political, socioeconomic, administrative, and policy) problems inherent in the
seismic rehabilitation of buildings and discussed in
this publication are treated in literature that can be
considered a subset of the literature on earthquake
hazard mitigation which, in turn, is a subset of the
literature on natural hazard mitigation. Thus, in discussing seismic rehabilitation or "hazardous structure
abatement," there are three distinct but partially overlapping sets of reference literature that taken
together, are quite extensive.
The purpose of this publication has been to alert and
orient the reader and potential user of the Guidelines
documents with the array of societal problems often
encountered in the seismic rehabilitation of buildings. A full treatment of each component of the array, however, simply is not feasible in a single document.
Once an individual begins to address seismic rehabilitation, he/she will face many of the problems and
issues discussed earlier in this volume. The first section of this chapter presents a selected annotated bibliography designed to help those individuals identify
appropriate additional reading, most of which also
contain reference lists. It focuses on a core group of
10 books, 4 chapters from another book, 13 journal
articles, and 4 reports. The second section of this
chapter presents a list of other excellent works that
may be of use to readers in specific situations.

CORE READINGS
A place to start exploring the policy and socioeconomic issues involved in the seismic rehabilitation of
buildings is a January 1996 Earthquake Engineering
Research Institute publication, PublicPolicy and
Building Safety, an excellent and very readable report
that succinctly surveys all of the major technical (i.e.,
nonengineering) issues and suggests practical strategies for understanding and dealing with many of

57

them. It includes a case study ofthe development of

the Los Angeles ordinance requiring the inspection
of steel-frame buildings; an overview of the typical
policy-making process; and a reminder-style checklist of social, economic, and political factors to be
considered in building safety.
An unusual and intentionally thought-provoking
1989 essay by Timothy Beatley, "Towards a Moral
Philosophy of Natural Disaster Mitigation," appears
in the InternationalJournalofMass Emergencies
andDisasters(7 March 1989: 5-32). It is a clear
and well written exploration of a rarely asked but
fundamental question: What is the extent of government's moral obligation to protect people and property from natural disasters such as hurricanes and
earthquakes? While many of the examples are drawn
from the hurricane milieu (Beatley's specialty), mitigating the earthquake risk is addressed as well. Beatley argues that mitigation as public policy may be
built on four ethical bases: utilitarian and market
failure rationales (maximizing net social benefits);
the concept of basic rights (providing primary physical security and subsistence); culpability and the prevention of harm (highlighting responsibility and
costs); and paternalism (legitimating government interventions).
A more conventional starting place is with a book by
William J. Petak and Arthur A. Atkisson. Natural
HazardRisk Assessment andPublicPolicy: Anticipating the Unexpected (New York, New York:
Springer-Verlag, 1982), which describes and explains mitigation policies and programs within the
larger context of disasters and/or disaster management.
A "handbook" spelling out a four-step mitigation process (community analysis, emergency analysis, mitigation needs assessment, and mitigation strategy development) is, PracticalMitigation: Strategiesfor
ManagingDisasterPrevention andReduction
(Rockville, Maryland: Research Alternatives Inc.,

'Chnopirr 6

II9SZ) bay .James W orentz, Thlg~h C.- Rumel [, ndA

Judlith A..Ke]I [y. Tiene ri'enftfiOn of thisviworik is
mucKh imore practical thmn conceptuall. Of:speciia Ifiri
tearst ae SILi[a ggaiton case histor ies from crlos~s -the
Uanited Satates :invtolvintg allE yp'es of manatrall antd technioi'ogjicai haarids.
.A sjpecaia kalntdof "cto~klb~otok (nmeaint in -thebest po~s,
si~ sns)
crr~p~noaedby.FEMA and teinelt'eaina
-tional 'CityMaaemn A~ssOczilataiOn is Emiergencfy
Gogrjgg~jeqe
r im .i Wajh~ngo DIDC..:: 'ntenatiuna City
MVainagement A:Oss laftion, I'9 9 a'dited by 'Thtomas
F.. Dralbek and Gearaid J. H~o'etnnr. Thai~scomtnprehen.save textbook is :iaabe~nded foar "'froanatIine" eareargency
managers and local g'ovemmnen-tofficials. The `TntroIDuio&
ndPr1 Hsoy antidFouridations of
Emerge nqty mLanagelmenai., provide the readierw'aith
[oasi co nce~pts land learmfiniolliogy seteing the sta~,6efio
the remaining pairts, Twmo cha~ptears lare 'of s~pecific
arelbevance ~to mniti~gaatioin
'Chapter 5~, "Peirspiectiv'es
and.Roles 'ofthe 'Statearid Federeal Ooavernnents,""
which explafins in idletaill t~he areiasiton~sh ip betwveen to0ial emeargenicy mainagern cnt and'otheir [[vvels 'of gov~elrnltnn't! ;and emngphas izes tbime
:raelgiov~emareantal prociess and sys5tem irrmertdep'erndience, and Chapater '6,
Dis~asraer u [Lagfo~n lnd.Hmi:i
a MNanag'emnent,"
whih[ctovers the ev~olurtiton 'of' fed'eralinn ifigpti'rn Pol-iay' thie arelaitin'ash ip Ibetween am itig ti'oan and icompr.r'[means[vie emeargeancy ariageaneant. [hazaart [dienfifat lLiti'n aand ariatlaysis ar&n iainat c s ol nd
atecbanaL'qes..

Came 'to daiffeareantV mare ~posoitive t onc usaon s about

'elite hnazaard ptearcielpti oans aoned abouat who teand s to b'e a
:su ppo eu, anion supp ortear, o~r aneautarali weith rie spect tto
hazard pollicy.
Asseciall editinan (Volurne 45, January 11935 of ~a
Ileading stcIholanily journl, Publt,1ic .Aa
mnhatirsionvtRevi'w'. is eantitleid "IErne~rgeancy M nagpmenet:. A Cha I
lleang~e fo~,r'par
bllii ~'dainInisar~aati on,' waitlb "ililiarn. j.
P tak asermi n as 'edittonr Thia iS"ate is an e.i"i'leltent
nvervlitewapninner dievtotted ioFE MA arid tto d~isaster
res~pontse and areiovery [inclrd ing icaolgcldfi~sas~teas). Of the 21 articles, aIl relatively shoart., ithos~t
dealiang aft l~eaast [inIpart wiithminatigAtiton aarie: "Em ergencq Maanagpmernrr: A Challeange for' uiblidAdrnanisatratiOn" by W~ifi[[am J. ]petalk; "'Emergency Manage:te~n~tain~d the l:nat'erg'overnrnien~talI S' stem" lby'.Av[nanHI.
ljusnkatell and Liouis'F
I
eselhl'er; "'Dais'sat:r IRetoye-ru a
n I'lt~~tia: BrtdLging the 1mat'erov.eammeantall Gap"' by Cl[aarieRII Ruloin and IDarnieli Ci.
IBarbee; "M0ji~t'igtioan :Starbegj~e~smand 1rntegrafted.Emeargency IN'tarinageaieant" by David' F Godaschallk arid iDavi'd J.. Barowear: and:"IFinancin IDisastear fitiDti'[n
Par'elpa~retdnie ss,, Res~pon se. and Recovery" byAfle[cn K.
12 ainig a ftocris ot niieianaerovernar ntall issuxes and
Paroioiearms is ioang~Nt:
tin
i 11934 artictie lbytWi fLiiam J..
Petalk, "..Natural.Hazaird Mitigatfi'on: .prtofessjronalizati on oftm[PIit'
kin rr es,'ian.1mtt
.nw

in ANuu.cnnd
i ulcChokce.' The Siate
anid toeal.Poliics O{c(nrd.fdoo
fNlew York.,
'New YOrk: Acadiemic Press,, Ilfl:). Petear H. Roassi,
himaaes ID Walrai~ght,, arind.lEican oa~r
Welber.-Buard inuexploire
attitudes 'of ipollifical irnfi useniatals " toward hazard imiatigatiori across 201astaties using ['Ot comimuaniar samn,pies rid :,0'P aDre' p'on'dten s.. Thmeir finditings that cOMmuinait ell:tes acar'oss -the*Uniitied States did noat find
hazards abobeveryqj ainmportant conmpared to ofthe~r IprobD[emns arid adeat athese ellites pireflearred "'quilek fiie~s' to
]polaitic~al[l pai nfwll ['nng-tearmi ineasureas -were subsequently chafl enpi d Iy Elliott iftter in Noaturd atniz-

i2,. August:' :2.85 -302). Ifn thins artilcle iRetak texam.rme s

time c ornstarai nas~'oaarricars to adto fiang an' idim~p[emenitahang
lhzaar'in iti~gaioan po iicaies, Ietak notes that mhilie
IF.EMN.Ahinistoaricim ly haas'paratshed state aand Ilocal gorvearanineits to [imaprose inmiatigaaiIonaiad eanbanice are~.SpoIste aand riecoveary 'capaloill iaties iln tordler nio bettear
hande hazaar's 'on -tine~ir 'os'n, those '"ear'' 'aain'esat'te
and liolal 6ov~eriaenuatsrectonstrai~ned by geop hysiczal, ecoliogicai.:, arnd:stocitop~olitizaai facttors. Withn thiRs
ian mind, IBetak addresses twto imnapoartanat quesatloans:
Htow cancuarreantaant ]pariqiecte~d inattiaral hIazartd losmse
be :redauaced -tharoughinMmparovennents ian Ibri Ild ing arid
Ianrd use prac'ti~ces in deiga
i6naed hazard aeas? Howi
arin tine adoptfionanti ui' of '[petcific bazari mi tig19a1
tiiOn ap~prola'inies by astate ant [[oclAI gtov'ernrrienars bhe
accom pliished?

der, 'Codoradito: UaniVearsity of ICIDoloar ' [in:tiattle 'of

Behavioral Science, I19:99). Usiang -the saarne data lout
amnore sophi ficatedastati stilcall tareaftmient, ittl er

.A[[ao aar'emaing the ineagveaentapaol[msgenier.ated'by di sastearisDioaerPlc.?rpenauwaa:

SelectedAnnotatedBihliographyandAdditionalReferences

ManagingProgramsUnderSharedGovernance
(New York, New York: Plenum Press, 1986) by
Peter J. May and Walter Williams. Adopting a "two
worlds of disaster politics" approach (the world of
normal politics/low saliency and the world of active
policy making in the aftermath of a disaster), this
study was driven by two fundamental questions:
How are good ideas turned (or not) into concrete actions? How might FEMA stimulate greater mitigation and preparedness efforts? Taking an "implementation perspective," May and Williams explore
the "politically less visible aspects of disaster policy"
under situations of"shared governance" (local, state,
and federal).
Perhaps the core book of the 1980s is Thomas E.
Drabek's Human System Responses to Disaster: An
Inventory ofSociologicalFindings(New York, New
York: Springer-Verlag, 1986). This work is a selfconscious attempt to survey the disaster literature
extant at the time and create an "encyclopedia" of
findings. It remains a fundamental resource in the
field, and significant attention is focused on to mitigation.
Next is a book edited by Louise K. Comfort, Managung Disaster:Strategiesand PolicyPerspectives
(Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press,
1988). This collection of original essays by 21
scholars in the field of public policy is organized
around two basic questions: What are the primary
issues confronting public managers in a disaster?
What actions/measures can they take to save lives
and protect property? Case studies are woven into
the articles, and significant attention is paid to mitigation.
W. Henry Lambright began a research project in the
early 1980s on the rapidly evolving role of states (including California) in disaster management, and he
subsequently published The Role ofStates in Earthquake andNaturalHazardInnovation at the Local
Level: A Decision-MakingStudy (Syracuse, New
York: Syracuse Research Corporation, 1984, also
available from the U. S. Department of Commerce,
National Technical Information Service). Lambright's logic of comparison is actually based on
three different "policy settings": Emergent (South,
Carolina and Nevada); intermediate (California); and
advanced (Japan). The core of the study is the application of a six-stage process of innovation model em-

59,

phasizing "entrepreneurs," "triggers," "the search for

options." "adoption," "implementation," and "incorporation."
Focusing solely on one California policy innovation,
Lambright followed his larger study with a 1985
journal article, "The Southern California Earthquake
Preparedness Project: Evolution of an 'Earthquake
Entrepreneur"' in the InternationalJournalofMass
Emergencies andDisasters( 3, November: 75-94).
Lambright depicts the Southern California Earthquake Preparedness Project as a novel mechanism
created to accelerate the pace and intensity of preparedness.
Kathleen J. Tierney reviews much of the mitigation
literature through 1989 in "Improving Theory and
Research on Hazard Mitigation: Political Economy
and Organizational Perspectives "in the InternationalJournalofMass Emergencies andDisasters
(7, November I989: 367-396). In this article,
Tierney notes that mitigation is the least studied and
therefore the least understood of the four key disaster
phases. The literature on mitigation, according to
Tierney, can be divided into three major areas: studies on public perceptions of mitigation measures; research on agenda setting, adoption, and the implementation of hazard mitigation measures; .and studies
assessing the impact of hazard mitigation measures.
Moreover, three themes pervade the literature on disaster mitigation: the only slightly coupled relationship between perceived risk and level of mitigation;
the difficulty in promoting mitigation programs because the problems they attempt to address are complex and highly technical; and the positive role
played by critical events in the adoption and implementation of hazard mitigation programs.
Questioning the role of critical events is Elliott Mittier in The Public PolicyResponse To Hurricane
Hugo In South Carolina(Boulder, Colorado: University of Colorado Institute of Behavioral Science,
Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, Working Paper 84, April 1993). This
study contradicts the popular assumption that in the
honeymoon period following a major disaster, political windows open easily for mitigation improvements. He maintains that those windows do not always open and, even if they do open, they slam shut
very quickly.

Chapter6

Another antidote (but from earthquakes and from

California no less) to the facile assumption that disasters lead easily to mitigation improvements is Standing Rubble: The 1975-1976 Oroville, California
Experience with Earthquake-DamagedBuildings
(Sacramento, California: Robert Olson Associates,
Inc., 1988) by Robert A. Olson and Richard Stuart
Olson. An article-length version appeared as "The
Rubble's Standing Up in Oroville, California: The
Politics of Building Safety" by Richard Stuart Olson
and Robert A. Olson in the InternationalJournal of
Mass Emergencies andDisasters(11, August 1993:
163-188).
Another book high on any "must read" list for earthquake mitigation is EarthquakeMitigation Policy:
The Experience of Two States (Boulder, Colorado:
University of Colorado Institute of Behavioral Science, 1983) by Thomas E. Drabek, Alvin H. Mushkatel, and Thomas J. Kilijanek. This book is important not only because it pays explicit attention to definitions and policy issues, but also because its selection of state cases does not include California. In
fact, hitting head-on the tendency to think of earthquake mitigation and California as synonyms, the
authors subtitled their Missouri chapter, "This Isn't
California," and their Washington chapter, "North
from California." Rich in detail, the authors discuss
three case histories of conflicts over earthquake mitigation policy that reveals the perceptual barriers and
resource constraints typical at the state and local levels. Of particular interest is Chapter V, "Resistance
from Below: St. Louis vs. HUD," which chronicles
an intergovernmental political battle over lateral
force requirements for building rehabilitations.
Almost a decade later, Philip R. Berke and Timothy
Beatley published PlanningforEarthquakes: Risk,
Politics, andPolicy (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1992). Combining micro
and macro approaches, Berke and Beatley present
three earthquake mitigation case studies (Salt Lake
County, Utah; Palo Alto, California; and Charleston,
South Carolina) with statistical analysis of the responses to a questionnaire on mitigation practices
from 202 communities in 20 states.
Arnold J. Meltsner's, "The Communication of Scientific Information to the Wider Public: The Case of
Seismology in California," in Minerva (3, Autumn

1979: 331-354) follows the early 20th century history of seismology studies in California and the tremendous political obstacles faced by earth scientists
and engineers who attempted to convince California's
leaders to publicly recognize and come effectively to
grips with the earthquake threat. The article chronicles the truly heroic efforts to establish that most basic of earthquake mitigation policies -- a seismic
building code -- and is an excellent antidote to the

myth that California's road to seismic safety prominence was easy.

The issue of what to do about "bad buildings" constitutes a small but important literature of its own. Still
the only book-length study of the policy dilemmas
inherent in trying to reduce the life-safety threat
posed by unreinforced masonry buildings is The Politics andEconomics ofEarthquakeHazardMitigation: UnreinforcedMasonry Buildings in Southern
California(Boulder, Colorado: University of Colorado Institute of Behavioral Sciences, Monograph 43,
1986) by Daniel J. Alesch and William J. Petak. In
this book, Alesch and Petak analyze three California
cases: Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Santa Ana.
The emphasis is on the interplay between technical
solutions, the economics and financing of building
rehabilitation, and the political maneuvering (especially the role and importance of the "window opening" San Fernando earthquake of 1971) that yielded
different ordinance outcomes in each of the cities.
To be read as a companion piece to Alesch and Petak's book is Richard Stuart Olson's, "The Political
Economy of Life Safety: The City of Los Angeles
and 'Hazardous Structure Abatement,' 1973-1981" in
Policy Studies Review (4, May 1985: 670-679).
Taking a more explicitly political viewpoint than
Alesch and Petak, Olson profiles the "pro" and "con"
sides on the famous Los Angeles seismic rehabilitation ordinance and emphasizes the importance of a
credible scenario for a future earthquake to the passage of the Los Angeles ordinance.
The last item in the core list is the February 1994
"theme issue" of EarthquakeSpectra. Edited by
Mary C. Comerio, this journal issue reflects the outcome of a U.S.-Italy workshop held in October 1992
and focuses on "Design in Retrofit and Repair." The
contributions revolve around 10 problems that both
U.S. and Italian experts had to confront: achieving a
I

60

SelectedAnnotatedBibliography andAdditionalReferences
balance between life safety and cost, achieving a balance between life safety and building conservation,
developing strategies "to preserve existing buildings
(not just monuments)," finding support for pre-design investigations by an entire design team in preparation for formatting rehabilitation designs, developing performance criteria for building systems and for
historic preservation as complements to structural
design criteria, insufficient understanding of materials performance, insufficient understanding of the
performance of composite structures resulting from
multiple retrofits, resolving incongruities between
finite elements analysis and building failure typologies, insufficient understanding of building performance over multiple earthquakes and how better information on that issue should be incorporated into
reconstruction codes, and determining whether the
building will be lost in another earthquake or by the
engineer's design?

ADDITIONAL READINGS
Natural Hazards
Unique in the field and almost falling in the core list
(except that it is 660, pages) is James Huffmnan's
Governiment Liabilitya DisasterMitigation: A
ComparativeStudy (Lanham, Maryland: University
Press of America, 1986). Undertaken by a professor
of law, this is a fascinating study of liability laws and
how they affect assignment of costs and, therefore,
mitigation policy in six countries -- New Zealand, the
United States, Peru, Japan, China, and what was then
the Soviet Union.
In 1985, Peter J. May published Recovering From
Catastrophes: FederalDisasterReliefPoliciesand
Politics (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press,
19'85). In this work May asks who wins and who
loses when it comes to bearing the costs .and risks of
disaster relief. Tracing the political evolution of disaster relief policy, May examines three histories -legislative, organizational, and, most interesting,
"what really happened." The legislative history focuses on policy changes, congressional politics, and
the driving question of the federal government's appropriate role in disaster relief.
Another general treatment of the disaster problem in
the United States is Raymond J. Burby's, Sharing

61

EnvironmentalRisks: How to Control Governments'

Losses in NaturalDisasters(Boulder, Colorado:
Westview Press, 199 1). Summarizing the results of
an extensive study of the losses from over 13 0 natural disasters occurring in the 1980s, Burby analyzes
the complex relationship between federal, state, and
local policies. While the work is comprehensive,
Part II, "How to 'Control Losses," is dedicated to mitigation and focuses on the problem of how "to ease
the perennial hardships states and localities suffer."
A short chapter, "The Special Case of Earthquakes,"
argues that earthquakes create consequences and
problems different from those caused by floods, hurricanes, and landslides. The author then addresses
how earthquake-prone local governments can be persuaded to insure their property at risk.

Earthquake Hazard Mitigation

Also almost falling in the core list is a recent book by
Robert A. Stallings, PromotingRisk: Constructing
the EarthquakeThreat (New York, New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1995). Starting from a different
base than the other authors, Stallings explores why
earthquake risk has not achieved the status of a fully
developed "social problem" given the likely national
consequences of a catastrophic earthquake. For Stallings, the answer is that "promoters" of the earthquake threat have followed essentially an "insider"
strategy and not a "grass-roots" strategy and have
therefore failed to generate widespread public support.
Another study notable for its non-California intent is
Arthur A. Atkisson and William J. Petak's "The Politics of Community Seismic Safety" in Proceedingsof
Conference XV? PreparingforandRespondingto a
DamagingEarthquakein the Eastern UnitedStates
(Reston, Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey, OpenFile Report 82-220, 1982).
Other specific but non-California studies include
those by Peter J. May and others in, EarthquakeRisk
Reduction Profiles: Local PoliciesandPracticesin
the PugetSound andPortlandAreas(Seattle, Washington: University of Washington, Institute for Public Policy and Management, November 1989) and
AnticipatingEarthquakes: Risk Reduction Policies
andPracticesin the Puget Sound and PortlandAreas (Seattle, Washington: University of Washington,

Chapter6

Institute for Public Policy and Management, November 1989).

ington, D.C.: Federal Emergency Management

Agency, May 1992).

Also worth reading is a short article by Peter J. May

and Patricia Bolton, "Reassessing Earthquake Reduction Measures," in the Journalofthe American PlanningAssociation(52 Autumn 1986: 443-451), and
May's "Addressing Public Risks: Federal Earthquake
Policy Design" in the JournalofPolicy Analysis and
Management(10, Spring 1991: 263-285).

Agency reports to the U S. Congress often are given

short shrift as resources, but some are of high quality.
Such is the case of a 1993 FEMA report, Improving
EarthquakeMitigation,A Report to Congress
(Washington, D.C.: FEMA, Office of Earthquake
and Natural Hazards, January 1993). Noteworthy
within that report are "Social Science Research: Relevance for Policy and Practice" by Russell Dyness,
"Local Public Capacity to Deal with a Catastrophic
Earthquake" by Claire Rubin and "Education,
Awareness and Information Transfer Issues" by
Paula Schultz.

A basic resource document on federal efforts to promote seismic safety, that contains much original information is, To Save Lives And ProtectProperty:A
PolicyAssessment ofFederalEarthquakeActivities,
1964-1987 (Washington, D.C.: Federal Emergency
Management Agency, 1988) by Robert A. Olson,
Constance Holland, H. Crane Miller, W. Henry Lambright, Henry J. Lagorio, and Carl R. Treseder.
Two U. S. Geological Survey studies that emphasize
knowledge transfer and applications are Applications of Knowledge Producedin the NationalEarthquake Hazards Reduction Program: 1977-1987
(Reston, Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey Open File
Report 88-13-B, 1988) edited by Walter W. Hays
and Applications ofResearchfrom the US. GeologicalSurvey Program,Assessment ofRegional Earthquake HazardsandRisk Along the Wasatch Front,
Utah (Reston, Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1519, 1993) edited by Paula Gori.
For further reading on the surprisingly partisan politics of seismic safety in Utah, see Richard Stuart
Olson and Robert A. Olson's,
"Trapped in Politics: The Life, Death, and Afterlife
of the Utah Seismic Safety Advisory Council" in the
InternationalJournalofMass Emergencies (12,
March 1994: 77-94).
A significant comparative work is EarthquakeMitigation Programsin California, Utah, and Washington prepared by C. E. Orians and Patricia A. Bolton
for the Workshop on Issues and Options for Earthquake Loss Reduction (Seattle, Washington: Battelle
Human Affairs Research Center, BHARC800/92/041, September 1992).
In the same vein is a study by Joanne M. Nigg and
others, Evaluation ofthe Disseminationand Utilization ofthe NEHRP Recommended Provisions(Wash-

Of historic interest are two federal reports from the

1970s. Stimulated by unexpectedly high losses in the
1971 San Fernando earthquake, the federal government began to pay more systematic attention to the
earthquake problem in the United States. Earthquake PredictionandPublicPolicy (Washington,
D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1975) was
prepared by National Research Council, Panel of the
Public Policy Implications of Earthquake Prediction
of the Advisory Committee on Emergency Planning
and EarthquakeHazardsReduction: Issuesfor an
Implementation Plan (Washington, DC: 1978) was
prepared in response to the NationalEarthquake
HazardsReduction Act of 1977 (PL 94-125) by the
Executive Office of the President, Office of Science
and Technology Policy, Working Group on Earthquake Hazards Reduction.

California Studies
Thirty-one years before the Loma Prieta earthquake
captured the world's attention, Karl V. Steinbrugge
published EarthquakeHazardin the San Francisco
Bay Area: A ContinuingProblem in PublicPolicy
(Berkeley, California: Institute of Governmental
Studies, University of California, 1968).
An interesting California mitigation (land use) case
study is presented by Martha L. Blair and William E.
Spangle in Seismic Safety andLand-Use Planning,
Selected Examples From California(Reston, Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper
9411-B, 1979).
M

62

Selected Annotated BibliographyandAdditionalReferences

In 1980, as a result of the devastation wrought by
Mount St. Helens earlier that year, President Carter
turned even more federal attention to the earthquake
threat in California. As a result, FEMA produced a
slim but important document, An Assessment ofthe
Consequencesand Preparationsfor a Catastrophic
CaliforniaEarthquake: FindingsandActions Taken
(Washington, D.C.: FEMA, November 1980). The
essence of this report is a set of earthquake scenarios
with associated probabilities and with estimated casualty (dead and injured) figures.
In 1983, the small central California town of Coalinga was virtually destroyed by an earthquake. The
response was unusually draconian -- level it and start
over. Kathleen J. Tierney chronicles the impacts and
aftermath in Report on the CoalingaEarthquakeof
May 2 1983 (Sacramento, Califorina: California
Seismic Safety Commission, 1985).
Multiple jurisdictionlintrastate studies of response to
risk are rare, but two were authored in the mid198Os: "Earthquakes and Public Policy I[mplementation in California," by Alan J. Wyner in the InternationalJournalof Mass Emergencies and Disasters(2
August 1984: 267-284) and PreparingforCalifornia'sEarthquakes: Local Government and Seismic
Safety (Berkeley, California: University of California Institute of Governmental Studies, 1986) by Alan
J. Wyner and Dean E. Mann.
Although most of the world will forever associate the
1989 earthquake in northern California with the
baseball World Series, coincidentally between San
Francisco and Oakland, that event is technically
called the Loma Prieta earthquake. In the aftermath,
Patricia A. Bolton and C. E. Orians undertook a
study of that disaster's mitigation lessons: Earthquake Mitigation in the Bay Area: Lessonsfrom the
Loma PrietaEarthquake(Seattle, Washington: Battelle Human Affairs Research Center, Summary Report BHARC-800/92/0 15, March 1992).
On the same disaster but with a narrower focus on
housing, Mary C. Comerio published 'Hazards Mitigation and Housing Recovery: Watsonville and San
Francisco One Year Later," in Disastersand the
Small Dwelling (London: James and James Science
Publishers, 1992) edited by Yasemin Aysan and Ian
Davis.

63

As Executive Director of the California Seismic

Safety Commission at the time, L. Thomas Tobin
also reflected on the lessons of the 1989 disaster in
"Legacy of the Loma Prieta Earthquake: Challenges
to Other Communities," Symposium on Practical
Lessonsftom the Loma PrietaEarthquake(Oakland,
Califorina: Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, March 1993).
Also stimulated by the Loma Prieta event and ensuing lessons was Use ofEarthquakeHazards Information: Assessment ofPractice in the San Francisco
Bay Region (Portola Valley, California: Spangle Associates, July 1993) by Spangle Associates.
The relationship between earthquake disasters and
mitigation opportunities inherent in reconstruction is
the theme of two other reports by Spangle Associates: PEPPER: Pre-EarthquakePlanningforPost-.
EarthquakeRebuilding (Sacramento. California:
California Office of Emergency Services, for the
Southern California Earthquake Preparedness Project, 19 87 and Rebuilding afterEarthquakes, Lessonsfrom Planners(Portola Valley, California:
Spangle Associates, 1991).
As part of its own planning efforts, the California
Seismic Safety Commission published and made
widely available its Californiaat Risk Reducing
EarthquakeHazards 1992to 1996 (Sacramento, California: California Seismic Safety Commission, Report SSC 91-091, 1992). From the same source and
interesting from an historical viewpoint is Earthquake HazardsManagement: An Action Planfor
California(Sacramento, California: California Seismic Safety Commission, September 1982). Probably
of the greatest historical import, however, is the California Legislature Joint Committee on Seismic Safety's Meeting The Earthquake Challenge (Sacramento,
California: Legislature, State of California, January
1974). This study, commissioned as a result of the
1971 San Fernando earthquake, was really the blueprint for seismic safety improvements in California
for more than a decade.
No list of literature on California would be complete
or credible if it did not include Waitingfor Disaster:
Earthquake Watch in California(Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1986) by Ralph
H. Turner, Joanne M. Nigg, and Denise Heller Paz.
This book addresses the issue of seismic prepared-

Chapter6

ness in the high risk zone of Palmdale, California.

Due to the alternating uplifting and subsiding of the
earth's crust in the region (the so-called Palmdale
Bulge), it was widely believed that Palmdale was a
harbinger of earthquakes. Hypothesizing that this
"near prediction" heightened the saliency of the region's earthquake threat, the authors examine the attitudes and actions of people and organizations in response to the threat.

Hazardous Buildings Studies

For more general reading on the conflict potential
inherent in public policy attempts to deal with existing earthquake-vulnerable buildings, see Richard
Stuart Olson and Douglas C. Nilson's "California's
Hazardous Structure Problem: A Political Perspective," in CaliforniaGeology (April 1983: 89-9 1),
and subsequently reprinted in Building Standards
(52, July-August 1983: 15-17).
How the federal government approached and handled
the problem of its own earthquake-vulnerable buildings is the subject of Diana Todd and Ugo Morelli in
"Adoption of Seismic Standards for Federal Buildings: Issues and Implications" in Proceedings, Fifth
U.S. NationalConference on EarthquakeEngineering, 1994 (Oakland, Califorina: Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, 1994, pp. 995-1003). In
the same Proceedings(pp. 1005-1012) is another
paper with a non-California focus -- David 0. Knuttunen's, "New Code Provisions for Existing Buildings in Massachusetts."

1994 EarthquakeSpectratheme issue discussed

above in the core list, Comerio followed upon this
earlier work with "Design Lessons in Residential Rehabilitation ( pp. 43-64), which focuses on mitigation
policy and housing in the aftermath of the 1989
Loma Prieta earthquake.

Example Rehabilitation Ordinances and

Initiatives
To illustrate the array of subjects discussed in this
publication, numerous enacted or proposed laws and
ordinances and accompanying materials, bond issue
descriptions, public finance materials, environmental
impact reports, special studies, and federal documents and reports have been examined. While too
voluminous to actually reprint in this Societal Issues
volume, each is summarized below to make it as easy
as possible for readers to understand the contents of
these materials and to obtain any that might be of
help.

Dealing with the problem of seismic rehabilitation of

hospitals in an even more non-California (i.e., a nonUnited States) setting is Allan Lavell's, "Opening a
Policy Window: The Costa Rican Hospital Retrofit
and Seismic Insurance Program 1986-1992" in The
InternationalJournalofMass Emergencies andDisasters(12, March 1994: 95-115). This article is
especially interesting for its treatment of Costa Rica's
ability to "learn" not only from its own earthquakes,
but also from the Mexico City disaster of 1985.

City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles BuildingCode,

Chapter88. EarthquakeHazardReduction in Existing Buildings, is available from the Department of
Building and Safety, Building Bureau, 200 N. Spring
St., Los Angeles, California 90012, (310) 485-2304.
This well-known ordinance, enacted in 1981 (10
years after San Fernando earthquake), established a
comprehensive program to require the seismic rehabilitation or demolition of unreinforced masonry
bearing wall buildings built before 1934 (or for
which a building permit was issued prior to October
6, 1933). The intent is clear: Where the analysis
determines deficiencies, this chapter of the building
code requires the building to be strengthened or demolished. The ordinance sets minimum standards,
provides procedures and standards for identifying
and classifying subject buildings according to their
current use, provides analysis methods and allowable
values, specifies information to be included on plans,
defines priorities and time periods for compliance,
and specifies penalties for noncompliance.

Reflecting on housing lessons from the Los Angeles

hazardous structure abatement ordinance is Mary C.
Comerio in "Impacts of the Los Angeles Retrofit
Ordinance on Residential Buildings" in Earthquake
Spectra (8, February 1992: 79-94). In the February

City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Building Code,

Division 91: EarthquakeHazardReduction in Existing Tilt-Up Concrete Wall Buildings available for the
Department of Building and Safety, Building Bureau,
200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, (310)

64

SelectedArnnotlatedBibliographyandAdditional References

485-2304. Similar in concept to Chapter 88, this ordinance focuses on another proven earthquake vulnerable building -- the tilt-up concrete wall buildings
"designed under building codes in effect prior to January 1, 1976." The intent to require strengthening or
demolition is the same. Like Chapter 88, Division 91
sets minimum standards for identifying and classifying subject buildings according to current use, provides analysis methods and allowable values, specifies notification procedures, prescribes information to
be included on plans, defines priorities and times for
compliance, and specifies penalties for noncompliance.
City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Building Code,
Proposed (June 16, 1994) Chapter92: Prescriptive
Provisionsfor Seismic Strengthening ofLight,
Wood-Frame, ResidentialBuildings available from
the Department of Building and Safety, Building Bureau, 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, California
90012 (310) 485-2304. This ordinance, proposed
following the Northridge earthquake, was adopted
August 27. 1996, as a voluntary ordinance. It
focuses on particularly vulnerable older light wood
frame buildings that have the following structural
weaknesses: "(a) sill plates or floor framing which
are supported directly on the ground without an approved foundation system. (b) a perimeter foundation
system which is constructed of wood posts supported
on isolated pad footings. (c) perimeter foundation
systems that are not continuous." Damage often is
serious to structures with any of these characteristics,
and the displaced occupants will result in a major
demand for emergency shelter. This is a voluntary
program, but like the city's other ordinances, this one
also specifies analytical procedures and similar matters. Being prescriptive in nature the ordinance specifies how the corrective work should be done. Even
though not officially adopted, it has been used as a
handout and as a reference during plan checking.
City of Palo Alto. California OrdinanceNumber
3666 adding Chapter 16.42 to the PaloAlto Municipal Code Setting Fortha Seismic HazardsIdenification Program,is available from the Building Inspection Division, 250 Hamilton, Palo Alto, California
94303, (415) 329-2550. While not able to enact a
mandatory seismic rehabilitation program, Palo Alto
succeeded in requiring that engineering reports be
done and publicly filed by owners of the following

65

three types of buildings: all URM buildings, all pre1935 buildings with 300 occupants or more other
than URM buildings with 100 occupants or more,
and all buildings constructed between January I.
1935, and August 1976. The 1986 ordinance, anchored in the intent of the safety element of the city's
comprehensive plan, defines responsibilities, scope,
building categories. reporting requirements, review
processes, and other matters.
City of Oakland, California OrdinanceNumber,
112'74, Adopting Interim Standardsfor the Voluntary
Seismic Upgrade ofExisting Structures, is available
from the City Clerk, One City Hall Plaza, Oakland.
California 94612(510) 238-3 61 1. Ordinance 11274
was enacted in 1990 after the 1989 Loma Prieta
earthquake. It was part of a series of policy efforts to
deal with damaged buildings and to initiate a comprehensive program to abate the hazards posed by
URM structures. This ordinance provides standards
and force levels for upgrading, defines historic buildings to be exempted, establishes a design review and
appeals process, and contains an exemption from future seismic upgrades for 15 years. It was seen as an
interim measure until a permanent program could be
established. One of the ordinance's goals was to
"promote public health, safety and welfare," but this
was to be done "within the constraint of reasonable
economic effects."
City of Oakland, California Ordinance 11613, Adding Article 6 to Chapter 18 of the Oakland Municipal
Code Adopting a Seismic HazardsMitigationProgramfor UnreinforcedMasonryStructures available
from the City Clerk, 'One City Hall Plaza, Oakland,
California 94612 (510) 238-3 61 1. Ordinance 11613
is the city's URM building ordinance. It applies to all
such buildings built before November 26, 1948 (the
date of the city's first code containing seismic provisions), interestingly addresses both voluntary (limited
scope) and mandatory (broader scope) rehabilitation
standards, assigns interpretive responsibility to the
building official, specifies right of entry, 'establishes
notification and reporting requirements, establishes a
public list of subject buildings and criteria for deletion of the building, establishes procedures for reviewing historic buildings, and provides for a variety
of appeals and other processes.
State of California, Health andSafety Code, Chapter
122 - BuildingEarthquakeSafety ("The URM

Chapter6

Law"), in available from legal research services or

the California Seismic Safety Commission, 1900 K
Street, Suite 100, Sacramento, California 95814,
(916) 322-4917. Added to California's statutes in
1986, this law requires the building departments in
all cities and counties located wholly or partially in
the Uniform BuildingCode Seismic Zone 4 to "(a)
identify all potentially hazardous buildings within
their respective jurisdiction on or before January 1,
1990, (b) establish a mitigation program for potentially hazardous buildings to include notification to
the legal owner, . . . and (c) by January 1, 1990, all
information regarding potentially hazardous buildings and all hazardous building mitigation programs
shall be reported to the appropriate legislative body
of a city or county and filed with the Seismic Safety
Commission." It requires the commission to monitor
the program by annually publishing a report and was
amended in 1993 to require that, upon transfer of
ownership of any URM built before January 1, 1975,
the purchaser must be given a copy of the CommercialPropertyOwner's Guide to EarthquakeSafety.
The law also refers to the following one, which excuses locals from associated liabilities.
State of California, Health andSafety Code, Article 4
(Sections 19160 through 19168) - EarthquakeHazardousBuildingReconstruction, is available from
legal research services or the Seismic Safety Commission, 1900 K Street, Suite 100, Sacramento, California 95814, (916) 322-4917. This law was passed
in 1979 and was one of the earliest attempts to remove barriers to seismic rehabilitation. It was permissive in that the statute authorizes (not mandates)
local jurisdictions to assess their hazards, allows for
adoption of rehabilitation standards less than those
required for new buildings, and among other subjects
provides immunity from liability for local jurisdictions arising from damages to rehabilitated buildings
or casualties caused by earthquakes. While well intended, the law also became an excuse for many local
jurisdictions to do nothing until stronger legislation
was passed in 1986.
U.S. Government, Office of the President, Executive
Order 12941, Seismic Safety ofExisting Federally
Owned or Leased Buildings, is available from the
Mitigation Directorate, Federal Emergency Management Agency, 500 C Street, S.W., Washington, D.C.
20472, (202) 642-3231. Based on earlier legislation,

66

this Presidential Executive Order is an example of

the exercise of authority that could be provided to
any chief executive, administrative officer, city manager, or other appropriate official. Executive Order
12941 sets minimum standards for use by federal
departments and agencies "in assessing the seismic
safety of their owned or leased buildings and mitigating unacceptable risks. . . " In addition, the order
assigns implementation responsibilities, provides for
periodically revising the standards, and requires the
preparation of cost estimates consistent with the standards.
State of California, Health andSafety Code, amending Section 18938 and addingArticles 8 and9 to
ChapterI ofDivision 12.5 Relating to the Rehabilitation, Changed Use, or ClosureofAcute CareGeneralHospitals by January1, 2030, is available from
legislative reference services or the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, 1600 Ninth
Street, Sacramento, California 95814, (916) 6543362. Following the 1971 San Fernando earthquake,
state legislation was passed effective January 1,
1973, requiring new hospitals to be designed, reviewed, and constructed to higher standards. Later
known as the "Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Seismic
Safety Act," these amendments were passed in 1994
following the Northridge earthquake. By far, the
most significant feature is the law's retroactivity:
. after January 1, 2008, general acute care hospital
buildings that are determined to pose certain risks
shall only be used for nonacute care hospital purposes" and ". . . no later than January 1, 2030, owners of all acute care inpatient hospitals shall demolish, replace, or change to nonhospital use, all hospital
buildings that are not in substantial compliance, or
seismically retrofit them so that they are in compliance with the [Office's] standards."
State of California, State Government Code, Sections
8878.50-8878.107, EarthquakeSafety andPublic
Buildings BondAct of 1990 (Proposition122), is
available from the California Seismic Safety Commission, 1900 K Street, Suite 100, Sacramento, California 95814, (916) 322-4917. Added to California's
statutes directly by its voters, this $250 million bond
issue's purposes were to: "fund retrofitting, reconstruction, repair, replacement, or relocation of stateowned buildings or facilities which have earthquake
or other safety deficiencies" and "provide financial

SelectedAnnotatedBibliogrpy andAdditional References

assistance to local governments for earthquake safety

improvements in structures housing those agencies
critical to the delivery of essential government functions in the event of emergencies or disasters." The
statute also funds related research and specifies how
priorities, eligibility, fund distribution, and accountability will be maintained.
School District of Clayton, Missouri Bond Issue Proposals, available from the District's Community Relations Department, 75 Maryland Ave., St. Louis,
Missouri 63105, (314) 726-5210. Of potential use to
jurisdictions interested in seismic rehabilitation, but
in lower seismic zones, this $18,365,000 bond issue
"built in" earthquake resistance improvements to
schools as part of a broader agenda. The agenda encompassed the need to accommodate increasing enrollment, to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), to preserve and properly maintain
existing schools, to provide student access to modern
computer technology, and "the obligation to protect
lives of students in the event of an earthquake by
strengthening portions of existing schools which do
not conform to current building codes."
City and County of San Francisco, Department of
City Planning, EarthquakeHazardReduction in
UnreinforcedMasonry Buildings: ProgramAlternatives, Final Environmental Impact Report 89.11 2E,
available from the City Planning Department, 1660
Mission St., San Francisco, California 94103, (415)
558-6287. This extremely valuable assessment of the
community impacts of a proposed ordinance to require at least partial seismic rehabilitation of URM
buildings contains a wealth of information on the
issues discussed generally in this publication. One
section, "Existing Financing Sources for the Retrofit
of San Francisco's Unreinforced Masonry Buildings,"
was very helpful.
City of Oakland, California, Office of Public Works,
PreliminaryList ofFinancialResources to Consider
in Developing aLoca URM Seism ic Safety Program, available from the Office of Public Works,
One City Hall Plaza, Oakland, California 94612,
(510) 238-3 961. Similar tothe section of San Francisco's EIR, this list of potential funding alternatives
and sources was prepared for the city by the staff of
the California Seismic Safety Commission. It contains many of the same references as San Francisco's
but also has additional information and some discus-

67

sion of the purposes and advantages and disadvantages of various financing mechanisms.
Federal Emergency Management Agency, A BenefitCost Modelfor the Seismic RehabilitationofBuildings. Volume 1, A User's Manual and Vblume 2,
SupportingDocumentation (FEMA 227 and 228), is
available from the Publication Distribution Facility,
500 C St. S.W., Washington, D.C. 2,0472, (800) 4802520. Increasing use is being made of methods to
evaluate the benefits and costs of investing public
funds, in this case for the seismic rehabilitation of
private buildings. Later publications (FEMA 255
and 256) expand the use benefit-cost methods to federally owned buildings. These volumes provide
background information and procedures and software
for calculating the benefits and costs of seismic rehabilitation. The second volume in each set provides
additional supporting data and technical papers.

FurtherReferences
In addition to the key items in the preceding annotated bibliography, there exists a myriad, of other
valuable materials used in preparing this publication.
These included the following:
Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).
1979. Attorney/s Guide to EarthquakeLiability. Oakland, California: ABAG.
Association of Bay Area Governments. 1988. Liability ofLocal GovernmentsforEarthquakeHazards
andLosses: BackgroundResearch Reports. Oakland, California: ABAG.
Association of Bay Area Governments. 1989. Liabiiity of Local Governments For EarthquakeHazards
andLosses: A Guide to the Law andIts Impacts in
the States of California,Alaska, Utah and Washington. Oakland, California: ABAG
Association of Bay Area Governments. Seismic Safety Commission. 1992. The Right to Know: Disclosure ofSeismic Hazardsin Buildings, SSC 92-03.
Sacramento, California: SSC.
Association of Bay Area Governments. 1994. IncrementalSeismic Retrofit Opportunities. Silver
Spring, Maryland: Building Technology, Inc.

Chapter6

Association of Bay Area Governments. February

1994. "Design Lessons in Residential Rehabilitation," EarthquakeSpectra 10: 1:43-64 (Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Oakland, California).

California: Coalition of Preserve Historic Long

Beach.
Comerio, Mary C. 1989. Seismic Costs andPolicy
Implications. Oakland, California: George Miers and
Associates.

Association of Bay Area Governments. 1995. NorthridgeHousing Losses: A Study for the California
Governor's Office ofEmergency Services. Berkeley:
University of California.

County of Los Angeles, Chief Administrative Office.

1995. NorthridgeEarthquake: Report ofFindings,
Joint Cities andCounty HazardMitigationWorkshop. Los Angeles, California: County of Los AnAssociation of Bay Area Governments, Seismic Safe- - geles.
ty Commission. 1995. Status of the Unreinforced
Davenport, Clifton W., and Theodore C. Smith.
Masonry BuildingLaw: 1995 Annual Report to the
1985. "Geologic Hazards, Negligence, and Real EsLegislature, SSC 95-05. Sacramento, California:
tate
Sales," CaliforniaGeology, July (Department of
SSC.
Conservation, Division of Mines and Geology,
Beatley, Timothy, and Philip Berke. 1990. "Seismic
Sacramento, California).
Safety Through Public Incentives: The Palo Alto
Seismic Hazard Identification Program," Earthquake Dean, William E. 1995. "Marketable Risk Permits
for Natural Disaster Mitigation," NaturalHazards
Spectra 6:1: 57-79 (Earthquake Engineering
11:2: 193-201 (Kluwer Academic Publishers, The
Research Institute, Oakland, California).
Netherlands).
Building Systems Development, Inc. 1993. ReconEarthquake Engineering Research Institute. 1995.
structionAfter Earthquakes: Issues, UrbanDesign,
Outline ofPapers: 4th Japan/UnitedStates WorkandCase Studies. San Mateo, California: Building
shop on EarthquakeHazardReduction. Oakland,
Systems Development, Inc.
California: EERI. See especially "The Path From
Building Technology, Inc. 1994. FacilitiesManageTechnical Knowledge to Implementation of Hazard
ment ofExisting School Buildings: Two Models.
Reduction Measures" by Catherine Bauman, "PostSilver Spring, Maryland: Building Technology, Inc.
Earthquake Sheltering and Housing: Will Some Special Population Groups Have Special Needs" by PaCenter for Environmental Design Research. 1987.
tricia
A Bolton, "Factors Affecting the Scope of SeisUnreinforcedMasonry Seismic Strengthening Workmic
Rehabilitation
Projects and Programs" by Craig
shop andCostAnalysis. Berkeley: University of
D. Comartin, "The Role of Local Government in ReCalifornia.
covery of Housing" by Charles D. Eadie, "StandardCity and County of San Francisco, Department of
ization of Post-Earthquake Management Measures"
City Planning. 1991. Earthquake HazardReduction
by Laurence M. Kormfield, and "Immediate Rein UnreinforcedMasonry Buildings: ProgramAltersponse and Search and Rescue" by Richard A.
natives, FinalEnvironmentalImpact, Report
Ranous.
89.112E. San Francisco, California: San Francisco
Federal Emergency Management Agency. 1992. A
Department of City Planning.
Benefit-Cost Modelfor the Seismic Rehabilitationof
City of Los Angeles, Housing Department. 1995.
Buildings, two volumes, FEMA 227 and 228. WashRebuildingCommunities: Recoveringfrom the
ington, D.C.: FEMA.
NorthridgeEarthquake,January 17, 1994. Los AnFederal Emergency Management Agency. 1992.
geles, California: City of Los Angeles Housing DeBuildingfor the Future, Washington, D.C.: FEMA
partment.
Federal Emergency Management Agency. 1993. ImprovingEarthquakeMitigation: Report to Congress,
Washington, D.C.: FEMA.

Coalition to Preserve Historic Long Beach. 1987.

Achieving Urban Conservation and Minimizing
Earthquake Risk (seminar materials). Long Beach,

68

SelectedAnnotatedBibliography andAdditionalReferences
Federal Emergency Management Agency. 1992.
NFEHRP Handbookfor Seismic RehabilitationofExistingBuildings, FEMA 172. Washington, D.C.:
FEMA.

J. H. Wiggins Company. 1994. Life Safety andEconominc andLiaility Risks Associated with Strengthened UnreinforcedMasonry Buildings. Redondo
Beach, California: J. H. Wiggins Company.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. 1992.

Seismic RehabilitationofBuildings -- Phase P IssuesIdentification andResolution, FEMA 237.
Washington, D.C.: FEMA.

Look, David, ed. 1991. The Seismic Retroft ofHistoric Buildings Conference Workbook. San Francisco, California: Western Chapter ofthe Association
for Preservation Technology.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. 1992.

State Participationin the NationalEarthquake HazardsReduction Program,Washington, D.C.:
FEMA.

Low, Ball and Lynch. 1989. An EarthquakeSeminar: What You Need to Know to Respond to Claims.
San Francisco, California: Low, Ball and Lynch.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. 1994.

Seismic RehabilitationofFederalBuildings: A Benefit/Cost Model, two volumes: FEMA 255 and 256.
Washington, D.C.: FEMA.
Federal Emergency Management Agency. 1995.
Benefit-CostAnalysis ofHazardMitigation Projects
Volume 5, Earthquake, User's Guide Version 1.01.
Washington, D.C.: FEMA.
Federal Emergency Management Agency. 1995. Typ
ical Costsfor Seismic Rehabilitationof Buildings,
Second Edition, FEMA 156 and 157, Washington,
D.C.: FEMA.
Flatt, William D., and Wesley R. Kliner. 1991.
"When the Earth Moves and Buildings Tumble, Whc
Will Pay? -- Tort Liability and Defenses for Earthquake Damage within the New Madrid Fault Zone."
Lawtv Review, 22:(1):1-41. (Memphis State University, Memphis, Tennessee).
H. J. Degenkolb Associates, Engineers. 1992.
"Balancing Historic Preservation and Seismic
Safety." Details. H. J. Degenkolb Associates, San
Francisco, California.
Hart, Gary C., and Rami M. Elhassan. 1994. "Seismic Strengthening with Minimum Occupant Disruption Using Performance Based Seismic Design Criteria," EarthquakeSpectra 10:(1):65-8 0 (Earthquake
Engineering Research Institute, Oakland, California).
Hoover, Cynthia A. 1992. Seismic Retrofit Policies:
An EvaluationofLocal Practicesin Zone 4 and
Their Application to Zone 3. Oakland, California:
EER.

I.
69

Olshansky, Robert B., and Paul Hanely. Nd. "Seismic Building Codes," ReducingEarthquakeHazards
in the Central US. Urbana-Champaign, Illinois: department of Urban and Regional Planning, University
ofIllinois.
Olshansky, Robert B. 1994. "Seismic Hazard Mitigation in the Central United States: The Role of the
States." Investigations ofthe New MadridSeismic
Zone, U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper
1538-F-G. Reston, Virginia.: USGS.
Olson, Robert A.. 1987. HazardousBuildings: No
Longer a TechnicalIssue. Sacramento, California:
Robert Olson Associates. Inc.
Olson, Richard S., and Robert A. Olson. 1996.
"What To Do?" Politics,Public Policy, andDisaster: Oakland,Californiaand the 1989 Loma Prieta
Earthquake.Tempe: Arizona State University.
Rutherford and Chekene Consulting Engineers.
1990. Seismic RetrofittingAlternativesfor San Francisco's UnreinforcedMasonryBuildings: Estimates
ofConstruction Cost andSeismic Danage. San
Francisco, California: Rutherford and Chekene.
Schulman, Irwin. Nd. EngineeringLiabilitiesfor Design ofa Bridge That FailedDuringthe San Fernando Earthquake. Los Angeles: State of California. Department of Transportation.
Scott, Stanley, and Robert A. Olson, Eds. 1993. California'sEarthquakeSqfety Policy: A Twventieth AnniversaryRetrospective, 1969-89: Berkeley: Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of
California.

Chapter6 -

Sharpe, Roland L. Nd. Seismic Strengtheningof

PaloAlto Civic Center. Cupertino, California: Engineering Decision Analysis Company, Inc.
Siegel, Henry I., and Lawrence W. Fowler. 1994.
"Jackson Brewery: Upgrading an Historic Unreinforced Brick Building," EarthquakeSpectra
10:(1):81-92, (Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Oakland, California).
Solomon, K. A., and D. Okrent. 1977. Catastrophic
Events Leadingto De FactoLimits on Liability. Los
Angeles: University of California, School of Engineering and Applied Science.
State of California, Office of Emergency Services.
1992. Seismic Retrofit Incentive Programs: A Handbookfor Local Governments. Oakland, California:
ABAG.
State of California, Seismic Safety Commission.
1992. ArchitecturalPracticeand EarthquakeHazards: A Report ofthe Committee on the Architect's
Role in EarthquakeHazardMitigation. Sacramento,
California: SSC.
State of California, Seismic Safety Commission.
1990. EarthquakeHazardIdentificationand VoluntaryMitigation: PaloAlto's City Ordinance, SSC
90-05. Sacramento, California: SSC.
State of California, Seismic Safety Commission.
1987. FinancialandSocial Impacts of Unreinforced
Masonry BuildingRehabilitation,SSC 87-02. Sacramento, California: SSC.

State of California, Seismic Safety Commission.

1985. RehabilitatingHazardous Masonry Buildings:
A DraftModel Ordinance,SSC 85-06. Sacramento,
California: SSC.
Tierney, Kathleen J. 1993. Socio-EconomicAspects
ofHazardMitigation. Newark: Department of Sociology and Disaster Research Center, University of
Delaware.
U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of
Standards and Technology. 1995. ICSSC Guidance
on Implementing Executive Order 12941 on Seismic
Safety ofExistingFederallyOwned or Leased Buildings, ICSSC RP 5, NISTIR 5734. Gaithersburg,
Maryland: NIST.
U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of
Standards and Technology. 1994. StandardsofSeismic Safety for ExistingFederally Owned or Leased
Buildings andCommentary, ICSSC RP 4, NISTIR
5382. Gaithersburg, Maryland: NIST.
U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. 1994. The Secretaryofthe Interior'sStandards
for RehabilitationandGuidelinesfor Rehabilitating
HistoricBuildings. Washington, D.C.: NPS.
U.S. Department of the Treasury. 1995. "Administration Policy Paper: Natural Disaster Insurance and
Related Issues", joint letter from James L. Witt, Director, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and
Robert E. Rubin, Secretary, Department of the Treasury, February 16.
VSP Associates, Inc. 1994. State and Local Efforts to
Reduce Earthquake Losses: Snapshots of Policies,
Programs, and Funding, A Report for the Office of
Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress. Sacramento,
California: VSP.

State of California, Seismic Safety Commission.

1987. Guidebookto Identify andMitigate Seismic
Hazards in BuildingsandAppendix, SSC 87-03.
Sacramento, California: SSC.
State of California, Seismic Safety Commission.
1991. Policy on Acceptable Levels of Earthquake
Risk in State Buildings. Sacramento, California: SSC.
State of California, Seismic Safety Commission.
1994. ProvisionalCommentaryfor Seismic Retrofit,
SSC 94-02. Sacramento, California: SSC.

70

William Spangle and Associates, Inc. 1990. Strengthening Unreinforced Masonry Buildings in Los Angeles: Land Use and Occupancy Impacts of the L.A.
Seismic Ordinance. Portola Valley, California: William Spangle and Associates, Inc.

Appendix A
THE FOUR STEPS IN DETAIL
M

THE FOUR STEPS

Secure photographs or slides showing the effects of earthquakes characterized by probable

ground motions on buildings like those under
consideration. USGS, FEMA. the Earthquake
Engineering Research Institute (EERI), and
earthquake professionals can provide these.

Collect data on the building stock and identify

the types (structural systems, number of
floors, date of construction), numbers, and
locations of buildings considered vulnerable.
Initially this information may be a general
description based on informed judgment.

Collect property tax assessment data identifying building characteristics, square footage,
values, and owner names and addresses.

Collect occupancy and use information for

each building.

Identify buildings in which hazardous materials are used or stored.

Step 1: Define the Problem

Step JA: Preliminary Analysis
The measures outlined below are recommended as a
starting point. Tle initial assumptions, estimates.
and information collected may be informal, but as the
endeavor proceeds to subsequent steps, the information should be improved.
Determine the probabilityof damagingearthquakes
anddetermine whether it is significantenough to
justifyfurther action.
Request aformalstatement on seismic riskfrom the
US.. GeologicalSurvey (USGS), a state geological
agency, a universityprofessorofseismology, or a
consultingseismologist or riskanalyst.
Locate a map that depicts the location offaults and
the intensity of groundshaking associatedwith an
earthquake. The USGS, a stategeologicalsurvey,
FEMA, andother organizationshave these maps or
can help locate them.
Establishcriteria,types of buildings considered to be
unacceptablyvulnerable, andsurvey the building
stock. Useful assistancemay befound in thefollowing FEMA publications: Rapid Visual Screening of
Buildingsfor PotentialSeismic Hazards: A Handbook andSupportingDocumentation (FEMA 154
and 155) andthe NEHEP Handbookof Techniques
for the Seisnuic Rehabilitationof Existing Buildings
(FEM 172). TheApplied Technology Council
(ATC) ofRedwood City, California, also has available Evaluatingthe Seismic Resistance of Existing
Buildings (A TC-14J.
* Request a fornal statement on the vulnerability of
the types of buildings in the jurisdiction from a
qualified structural engineer or organization, university professor, state agency, or consulting
structural engineer.

Anticipate uncertainty in expert knowledge -aswell as

disagreementsamong experts, but work to eliminate
the appearanceofsignificantdisagreement among
crediblescientists andengineers by seeking consensus on the most signficantpoints.
Encouragescientists andengineers to debate differences among themselves, ignoreminor differences,
andpubliclyaironly those disagreements that bear
significantlyon thepolicy decisions to be made.
Policy-makers with generalist backgrounds should
not be expected to resolve technical disagreements,
but they can be expected to delay action when seemingly equally qualified scientists and engineers disagree among themselves.
Arising early in Step IA is the question of the types
of buildings considered to be earthquake-vulnerable.
Following is a comrpehensive list of suspect building
types based on earthquake experience and research:

71

Appendix A

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

income levels, ethnicity, and language capabilitiesof

residents; the numbers andtypes ofbusinesses and
associatedemployees; the ownershippatterns (resident or absent, multiple propertyandlarge building
owners, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, condominium associations);the property values, loan to equity ratios, mortgage default rates,
and rentalrates, and the applicableoccupancy levels and vacancyrates.

Unreinforced masonry bearing wall buildings

Tilt-up concrete wall buildings
Reinforced masonry wall buildings
Nonductile concrete moment resisting frame
buildings
Wood frame buildings with soft stories and
inadequate foundation connections
Moment resisting steel frame buildings
Buildings in areas of expected ground failure
Earthquake-vulnerable essential buildings

Evaluate economic data on: the range ofcosts to

rehabilitatetypical buildings (for variousperformance levels) basedon structure type, localseismic hazard, andsize; the time requiredto rehabilitate individualbuilding types as well as the whole
targetset; the potentialindirectcosts due to the disturbance anddisplacementcaused by the rehabilitation work (lost rent, lost businesses, lost tenants, cost
of relocatingand inconvenience, and lost sales and
property tax revenues); and thefuturefinancialbenefits of reduceddamage.

The following profile of typical building uses should

be viewed in conjunction with the above list:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

Schools
Churches
Hospitals
Government offices
Essential services (fire, police, emergency operations,
communications, and coordination centers)
Nonessential services (planning, park and recreation)
Parking structures
Residential
Office/commercial
Retail
Manufacturing
Warehouse
Industrial
Public assembly
Theaters
Arenas
Mixed uses

Many private consulting firms have computer programs and the expertise needed to estimate potential
earthquake losses for individual buildings, a portfolio
of buildings at different locations, or all buildings
within a geographical area. In addition, the National
Institute for Building Sciences (NIBS) has released,
nonproprietary software ("HAZUS") developed for
FEMA that anyone with a desktop computer can use
to estimate earthquake losses for their geographic
areas.

The following outlines various impacts, positive as

well as negative, of seismic rehabilitation:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

While data on nationwide earthquake hazards and

building stock information from the 1990 census and
other data bases will provide at least a general perspective, local information such as that collected as
part of this approach can be added and will allow for
more accurate planning. Consider using the NIBS
software or hiring a firm to use a proprietary program.

Lives saved and injuries prevented

Businesses and homes saved from future damage
Business and residential disruption prevented
Increased owner debt and higher loan service payments avoided
Changed property values and tax levies
Increased rents
Some buildings demolished or vacated
Historic buildings protected
Other code upgrades triggered (disabled access, energy
conservation, asbestos removal, fire sprinkler installation)
Changed property and other insurance premiums
Altered availability of loans and insurance

Review the results of thispreliminaryanalysis and

decide if the seismic risk to the community, company,
or owner is significantenough to proceedto the
more detailedanalysisdescribed in Step lB.
If the decision is to proceed, preparea rough estimate of the cost anda schedule to adoptand implement a seismic rehabilitationprogram.

For the affected buildings andneighborhoods, collect data on or at leastestimate: the numbers, ages,

72

The FourSteps in Detail

Step lB. DetailedAnalysis

The information, assumptions, and estimates made in
Step IA should be revisited and additional detail on
those points should be sought as part of Step IB.
Set preliminaryearthquake risk reductionobjectives:
Which buildings? What priorities? What pace?
What levels of performance? The following summarizes the performance levels (from greater to lesser)
discussed in Chapter 1 of the Guidelines and volume:
* Collapse Prevention: means that limiting post-earthquake damage state inwhich the building ison the
verge of experiencing partial or total collapse.
* Life Safety: means that post-earthquake damage state
in which significant damage to the structure has occurred, but some margin against either total or partial
collapse remains.

as well as areas underlain by soft or saturated soils,

including fills over lake and river beds and bay ,deposits.

Identy neighborhoods orareaswhere earthquakevulnerable buildings arehighly concentrated.

Consult with the local emergency services manager,
fire andpolice chiefs, and directorsofplanning, redevelopment, andpublicworks to determine the capability andplansforpost-earthquakefiresuppression, search and rescue, control of releasedhazardous materials, damage evaluation, andpublicsafety
to see how rehabilitationcould reducepost-earthquake demandsfor theirservices.
As a collateralbenefi, share the informationalready
collected to help these local officials understand
theirresponsibilitiesand likely problems after an
earthquake, use the informationderivedfrom
these consultationsto defineproblems that can
be reduced through seismic rehabilitatiog,and
encouragerevision ofthe emergency response
and recoveryplans using the information collected.

a Immediate Occupancy: means that post-earthquake

damage state in which only limited structural and nonstructural damage has occurred.
a Operational: means that post-earthquake damage state
in which the building issuitable for its normal occupancy and use, albeit possibly in a slightly impaired
mode.

Identify redevelopmentprojectareas (and

fuinding sources) and considerformation ofnew
projects,possibly expanding the definition of
"blight" to includepotentially earthquake-vulnerable buildings.

Performance levels should be matched with building

types and functions to determine priorities and pace.
In addition, Figure Al is reproduced here from the
Guidelinesto remind the user of the process for selecting a seismic rehabilitation strategy for a specific
building.

Outline administrativeimplications including:

potential demands for program management (resources and skills); need to support and coordinate proponent activity; need for enhanced enforcement capability (design review and construction inspection); cost of inventories and engineering, economic, social and environmental
impact data collection and analysis; cost to support stakeholder participation; cost to implement
alternative programs; length of time needed to
adopt a program and the approximate duration
of the implementation phase; and estimated cost
in lost revenues, additional staff requirements,
and additional capital outlay to the local government or company.

Review existingpolicies, goals, objectives, and requirements in the community to determine how they
may "dovetailt' or conflict with proposedearthquake
riskreductionstrategies including land use, economic development, housing, historic preservation, aesthetic and environmental, planned uses for affected
areas, future conformance with zoning ordinances,
planned changes to infrastructure, compliance with
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other
code mandates, compliance with storage and use of
hazardous materials regulations, emergency response
roles and capabilities, and any other applicable goals,
objectives and requirements.
ldentify and map hazardareasand affected neighborhoods. Existing maps can be used to identify areas of potential liquefaction and other ground failure

73

Appendix A

interest In reducing seismic risk

Ii'\/~~~0-9

Review Initial considerations

* Structural characteristics (Chapter 2)
* Site seismic hazards (Chapters 2 &4)
* Occupancy (Not considered In Guidelines. See Section 1.3)
* Historic status (See Section 1.61.3)
* Economic considerations: See Exawple Applications volume (FEMA 276)
for cost Information.
* Societal Issues: See Planning for Seismic Rehabilitation: Societal Issues
(FEMA 275).

Select Rshabilitation Objective (Chapter 2)

*Earthquake ground motion

*Perfonmiance level

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I

f
3

II

Selct Initial approach to risk mitigation (Chapter 2)

-t
.

3A Simplified rehablltation
(Chapters 2,10&I)
*Identify building model type
*Consider deficiencies
*Select full or partial
rehabilitation

4A Design rehabilItation
measures
Determine and design
corrective measures to
meat applicable
FEMA 178 requirements

5A Verify rehabilitation design

measuree
* Re-evaluate building to assure
that rehabilitation measures
remove all deficiencies without
creating new ones
* Review for economic acceptability
I

8AI It not acceptable

* Retum to 3A and revise
rehabiltation goal orto 4A
and revise corrective
measures

NY

SB Systematic rehabilitation
(Chapters 2-9 &11)
* Consider deficiencies
* Select rehabilitation strategy
(Chapter 2)
* Select analysis procedure
(Chapters 2 &3)
* Consider general requirements
(Chaoter 2)
5_

_,

_,

~ 5-"=
4B Perform rehablIltttlon design
*Develop mathematical model (Chapters 3 through 9 for stiffness and
strength)

*Perform force and deformation response evaluation

(Chapters 2 through 9and 11)
*Size elements, components, and connections
(Chapters 2,5 through 9, and 11)

BB Verify nhabilitation mesures

*Appl component acceptance criteria (Chapters 2 through 9
.and It1)
*Review for conformance with requirements of Chapter 2
*Review for economic acceptability

_~0-i

GA2 Ifasceptable
* Develop construction
documents (Section 1.5.5)
*Begin rehabilitation
* Exercise quality control
(Chapter 2)

FIGURE Al Rehabilitation process flowchart

(from Chapter 1, NEHRP Guidelinesforthe Seismic Rehabilitationof Buildings.

74

1
I

The FourSteps in Detail=

Consultlegal counsel on the adoption andimplementation processes, potentialimpacts on property

rights andleases, andthe need to disclose risk information.
Estimate totalcosts including: cost of engineering
and rehabilitation, cost of required other work (ADA
compliance, code upgrades), cost of alternative tenmporary space and relocation, costs of disruption (estimated), possible effect on leases and possible loss of
tenants, lost rent and sales during the period of disruption, loss of sales tax revenues, increased debt
service for the owner, and increased rent because of
the cost of rehabilitation and disruption.
Describeeffects that arenot quantifiablesolely as
monetary costs such as loss of housing stock, loss of
historical and architecturally important buildings, and
business failures, closures and relocations.

*
*
*

*
*
*
*

Identif expert groups with knowledge to add to the

considerations. Some of these groups include:
* Architects
* Civil engineers
Engineering geologists
* Structural engineers
Attorneys

*
*
*
*
*

Certified public accountants

Bankers and financial planners
Insurers and reinsurers
University faculties
Realtors and property managers

decision-makingprocess including low income resi-

dents of affected buildings, homeless persons, minorities and those with language Limitations, elderly and
retired persons, and physically challenged persons.

Fewer lives lost

Fewer persons injured
Less property damage
Less demand for emergency response
Less loss of housing resources
Less loss of historical resources
FEaster economic and social recovery
Less financial impact of earthquakes
Less business downtime
Increased safety for customers/tenants
Less change for the neighborhood
Increased building value
Higher market value for buildings
Less costly insurance premiums
More secure equity for loans

Determine if new organizationsareneeded to representpreviously unorganizedgroups of affectedpersons, specific concerns, or issues. If so, identify pos-

sible leaders and members to facilitate the formation

or representation of the group(s).
Icdentify potentialproponent andopponentleaders,
includingtheirrespectivepositions.
Identjfy ne vs media andmeet with reporters-and
editors to briefthem on the concernsand the adoption process, provide backgroundinformation, and
commit to a relationshipbasedon open communica-

tion. Media outlets include general circulation daily

and weekly papers, ethnic papers, business and legal
papers, radio news, television news, and community
focused magazines.

Identify existing groups that will be affected by or

interestedin the seismicrehabilitationprogram:
* Homeowners associations

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

Identify potentially affected autonomouspolitical

entities includingredevelopmentagencies and special districts(fire, police, school, water supply, sanitary, gas, electric and recreation).

Identify those groups directly affected by decisions

may not have an effective way to participatein the

Describe trade-offvalues (amountand cost [direct

and indirect]) versus benefits (even if vague, abstract, orprobabilistic). The potential bases for justifying seismic rehabilitation include the following:
*
*
*
*
*

| Civic, religious, fraternal, and other groups

Chambers of commerce
Merchants associations
Building and owners managers associations
Boards of realtors
Historical and preservation societies
Ethnic business associations and groups
Tenant organizations
Community service clubs
Labor unions and employee associations

Learn how to communicate matters ofseismic risk,

impacts, conflicting values, and uwcertainty to an
audiencethat may not understandthe language of
science andengineeringandmay very well have dif

fering values on riskacceptance andthe cost of risk

reduction.

75

Appendix A

Accept the idea thatpeople andgroups view risk differently and have different values when balancing
earthquakerisk with other values.
Realize that a mathematicaldescriptionofrisk does
not convey a complete message to most people. In
addition to describing the probability or chance of an
earthquake of a certain magnitude within a year, 30
years or a 100 years, describe what may happen in
terms of the damage and the consequences of that
damage to a building or the community.

cussions of alternative approaches revolve around the

performance levels desired for various types of buildings (and therefore the costs) and the number of
buildings potentially involved.
Develop a strategy andaprocess that will address
concernsand involve affected organizationsin discussions ofalternatives, within the limits posed by
availableresources and in a reasonableperiodof
time.
Meet with building owners and hearconcerns, be
open to new or unexpected alternatives, andrespect
differentperceptions.

Communicatefacts, avoid the temptation to hide impacts or expressjudgment ofothers' values, and
avoidsurprisingotherparticipantswith information
that implies a "hidden agenda."

Provide information to interestedindividualsand

groups on the objectives ofpossible rehabilitation
programs, the seismic hazards, buildingvulnerability, and the consequences of earthquakedamage if
nothingis done.

Deal immediately with concerns raised(even

rumors) andsolicitexpert assistanceto address issues andconcerns directly.
Provide information on earthquakerisk andbuilding
vulnerabilityfromtrustworthy sources (leaders, officials, expert agencies, professional associations, university faculties).
Provide references where interestedpartiesmay obtainmore information.

Solicit involvement, comments andsuggestionsfrom

interestedindividuals andgroups, respondto comments andsuggestions, anduse informal as well as
formal meetings.
Considerformationofan advisory committee and
evaluatepotentialchairs. For the chair, look for a
person known for openness and objectivity who is
experienced at running meetings, willing to find
common ground and build consensus rather than
highlight differences and polarize, free from conflict
of interest, able to devote the considerable time and
energy required, and willing to recommend, support
and defend tough decisions and recommendations -often in public forums.

Reconsider loss estimation studies done in Step 1A

using new data or, if not done, considerperforming
these analyses at thispoint.
Decide whether the seismic risk to the community,
company, or owner is significantand whether or not
toproceed to Step 2.

Step 2: Develop and Revine Alternatives

Assuming the earthquake hazard and community vulnerability combine to create a seismic risk justifying
seismic rehabilitation of certain buildings, Step 2 will
result in the definition ofpractical alternatives. Simply stated, no standard formula or approach will work
everywhere. While information already collected
may suffice, it often is essential to collect more detailed data (e.g., a property-by-property inventory or
consultant analyses of specific issues).
More precise data on the community building stock
and its general earthquake-resistance characteristics
are almost always needed because many Step 2 dis-

76

Regularly meet with andbriefcouncil members, corporate decision-makers, or clients on the development ofalternatives.
Providephotos oftypical andrelevant damage and
provide documentation ofpossible damage to the
community or company.
Show proofofthe seismic hazard.
Describe the possible consequences oflikely earthquake damage, both direct (damage to buildings and
injuries) and indirect (disruption, loss oftax revenues, loss ofhousing andhistoricalresources).

The Four Stes in Detail

Explain the scope and cost ofalternative approaches.

* Provide guidance and no-cost inspection services for

"'do-it-yourself' homeowners
* Allow property tax adjustments and other tax incentives
* Offer loans backed by government bonds
Form a "Redevelopment Area" and "build-in" seismic
rehabilitation
* Use "conservation corps" personnel for some of the
work (especially for elderly and low-income residents)
* Increase availability of special purpose construction
loans
* Encourage bank/lending institutions to provide incentives
* Secure insurance premium reductions

Proposean implementationprogramsuch as one of

the following model programs or a hybrid that combines elements ofother models: attrition process,
voluntary program, informal/encouragement program, and mandatory program.
Decide which ofthe buildingtypes and uses describedabove to include.
Decide which neighborhoodor geographicareasto
include.

Solicit comments and advice from the affected parties, their organizations, and the involved professional organizations.

Determine if existingplans to upgradefacilities or

redevelop an areacan be amendedto incorporate
seismic rehabilitationofbuildings.

Considera variety ofmanagement solutions that

vary with the types of buildings covered by thepro-

Decide on a processto enforce the regulations inchuding scopes anddeadlinesfor reports, applications, andwork andconsiderpenaltiesfor noncompliance includingthe possibilityof condemnation
anddemolition.

gram (performnance objectives, length of time for implementation. triggers, level of building department
involvement, incentives).
Decide how long ownersshould be protectedfrom
any new retroactiverequirements.

Reconsider the desiredseismic rehabilitationperformance levels discussed above accordingto uses and
building types selected in the Step A. Decide if it is
stillfeasibleto meet those levels in light of the costs,
andrevisit the performance levels to determine if
they are too low to provide the benefits desiredor
possibly unnecessarilyhigh.

Identify actions to mitigatenon-financial impacts of

the programn.
Determine if andhow tenantrelocationcosts may be

fJunded.
Outline special considerationsfor historicalbuild-

Perform benefit-cost analyses. Because ofthe difficulty in quantiyingthe costs andbenefits ofseismic
rehabilitationprograms, the low probabilityofdamagingearthquakes-andthe unpredictability and infrequency but high-consequence ofthese ev.ents, the
benefit-cost ratiowill often appearwifavorable at
first. However, it may not be so when the value of
life is taken into account. Nonetheless, the benefitcost analysis is a good tool to compare alternatives
and provides a place to start wvhen considering possibilities to improve the ratio. To this end, consider
the following incentives to make seismic rehabilitation less costly and less disruptive to those affected:

ings.

Determinecriteriaandprocessesfor time extensions.

Revisit the benefits ofavoidingfuturelosses, the
costs ofdoing nothing, and the costs of the rehabilitationprogramselected.
Assess thepoliticalfeasibili'yof various options and
ask two key questions: Is there enough information
and sufficient support topushfor action?Is an in-

terim decision or aphaseddecision-makingprocess

appropriate?
Recognize likely pressureto delay action if an earthquake is notperceived as imminent, but recognize
pressureto act quickly after an earthquake rwhen

0 Use preservation tax incentives for historic buildings

a Waive permnit and inspection fees
* Waive planning requirements (off-street parking, density restrictions, variance request procedures

repairsandpossibilitiesfor rehabilitationare suddenly salientto decision-makers.

77

Appendix A

Review the strategiesavailable (attrition, voluntary,

informal/encouragement, or mandatory) andformulate a recommendation.

Step 4: Secure Resources and Implement

Seismic rehabilitation programs do not run without
resources and problems. Their execution requires that
resources be committed, processes established, materials prepared, monitoring and evaluations carried
out, and adjustments made. Owners of earthquakevulnerable buildings are seldom well financed, often
have difficulty. securing new loans, and usually are
not experienced in hiring engineers or managing
complex construction projects, especially ones that
affect other community interests. Step 4 recommends anticipating these conditions.

Step 3: Adopt an Approach and Implementation Strategy

Once a recommendation to rehabilitate earthquakevulnerable buildings has been forwarded to the final
decision-maker(s), for public agency programs an
even more public process begins. A seismic rehabili
tation advocate must understand that the decisionmaker(s) are expected to request both pro and con
information and balance the many needs and capabil.
ities of the community, corporation, or owner. Step:
uses the results from previous steps to provide the
expected information.

Obtainfunding, qualifiedstaff office space, equipment, and, if necessary, consultantsupport.

Prepareanddisseminate materialsorientedtoward
all affected parties.
Establishaprocessfor monitoringrehabilitation
programprogress, identifyingproblems, andreporting results.

Explain the seismic risk andsupport it with expert

testimony.
Determine ifseismic rehabilitationcan be incorporatedinto othercommunity programsto improve or
redevelop specific areasorfacilities.

Maintaincontact with the organizationsand individuals involved with developing the alternativesand
adoptingthe program. Holdmeetings with affected
groups tofacilitate open communications.

Explain the benefits, costs, and unquantifiableeffects.

Maintain quality controlto ensure thatprojects are

properlydesignedand executed

Explain the views ofthose affected.

Explain the reasonsfor the recommendedprogram
in comparison to otherpossible alternatives.
Anticipate andprepareanswersfor thefollowing
questions: How much will it cost (our city, our company) to comply with the proposedprogram?How
much time do we/I have to make this decision? What
is the liabilityassociatedwith going ahead, or doing
nothing? Is there a real earthquakehazardaffecting
this area?Are standardsfor seismic rehabilitation
available?How can we/Ijustify imposing this measure (to constituents, a board, a boss, or a client)?
What will happen (to the community, business, building or client) if nothing is done? What are neighboringjurisdictions(or competitors) doing?
Recommend andparticipateinformalhearings.
Modify the recommendedprogramto meet any concerns andto addressnew informationraisedduring
hearingsor theformal decision-makingprocess.

In order to protectthe credibilityofthe program,

maintain vigilancefor over-chargingor otherfraudulent business practices or incompetent work by engineers, architects, and contractors.
Work with and supply information to buildingowners to assist them in the wise selection of engineers,
architects, andcontractors.
Ensure thatprojects meet requirementsto mitigate
community impacts.
Be sure that those responsiblefor offering andmanagingincentives are responsive to owner needs.
Amend technicalprovisions ofthe program whenever the engineering-orientedGuidelines documents
are amended.
.Bepreparedto move quickly if unacceptableor unanticipatedside effects occur to avoidcreating apolitical backlash causedby the normal inability to see
absolutely every problem aheadof time.

78

The FourSteps in Detail

Encourageprofessional organizations,local col-

Consider prior rehabilitation experience and experience using the Guidelines.

leges, and others to offer trainingforarchitects, engineers, plan checkers, inspectors, andconstruction
professionalsonfollowing and implementing the
Guidelines andtheirproperexecution.

Consider how to evaluate both single buildings and

groups of potentially vulnerable buildings.
Determine the relative importance of various buildings to the company.

Expect theprogramto be dynamic andin need of

furtherrefinements as a result of experience gained
during implementation.

Consider building(s) occupancy and functions.

Recommendprogramrefinements to -decision-makers Consider corporate image and reputation with cuswhen needed
tomers and suppliers.

Ensure post-disaster business resumption plans are

updated.

CONCERNS UNIQUE TO USERS

Consider post-earthquake access to suppliers, customers, and employees.

Depending upon the user (Jurisdiction with building

code enforcement authority, private or corporate
owner, consultant) and the intended application of
the Guidelines, differing perspectives and problems
must be taken into account.

Determine geographic distribution of the hazard and

the probability of seismic events -y region. Quantify
the expected seismic loads and determine resulting
building vulnerabilities (expected performance under
specified loads).

Local Government Building Official Tasks

Determine the planning horizon.

Design, recommend, advocate, and'then implement a

seismic rehabilitation program for certain types of
building within the jurisdiction. Serve as responsible
staff person on the many aspects of the program:
seismic risk, engineering, administrative, and possibly even socioeconomic and policy.

Conduct a rapid assessment of buildings.

Determine performance objectives for the company,
lines of business and specific facilities.
Do a comparative risk evaluation of facilities considering hazard, vulnerability, and importance.

Learn what other communities are doing and cooperate to share resources.

Determine the seismic rehabilitation requirements, if

any, ofthe jurisdictions responsible for building safety.

Although usually licensed by the state, assess the

earthquake engineering capability of local design
professionals and contractors to carry out the actual
seismic rehabilitation of buildings.

Determine availability of external financial incentives.

Determine penalties, if any, for not performing rehabilitation.

Assess the capability of the building department staff

and determine appropriate training needed and its
cost.

Determine if local building or planning regulations

will require compliance with other health and safety,
access, hazardous material, energy conservation, or
historical requirements for each of the buildings
found to be vulnerable.

Self-Motivated Owner Tasks

Recommend to management alternatives for addressing seismic risk.

Determine the cost of permits, steps involved, and

time requirements to rehabilitate each vulnerable
building.

Locate and engage knowledgeable professionals:

geologists and geotechnical engineers, structural engineers, and mechanical/electrical/process engineers.

79,

Appendix A

Consider how to benefit from community, customer,

and client good will earned by rehabilitating buildings, and determine how to capitalize on these benefits.

injuries; off-site consequences of release of hazardous materials; and cost of repairs.

Determine if uses and functions at risk are critical, or

if redundant facilities provide the necessary back-up
at locations outside of the same hazard area.
Determine alternative strategies for meeting desired
performance objectives. Have the design consultants
do conceptual designs for the following: short-term,
temporary measures such as shoring collapse-hazard
building elements; nonstructural and falling hazard
abatement measures to remove the most vulnerable
life-threatening elements; and permanent rehabilitation measures consistent with performance objectives
Identify and meet with persons responsible for the
following: operations and business resumption, space
management, risk management (including insurance
and hazardous materials), emergency response and
employee safety, legal counsel, finance, public relations, and government relations.
Survey vacancy rates in nearby buildings to determine the cost and feasibility of temporarily relocating
functions during rehabilitation.
Determine knowledge and level of commitment of
the upper management and Board of Directors.

Secure lease or purchase options on alternative space

before announcing a need for relocating functions
from vulnerable buildings.
Meet with employees and tenants to explain the risk
and the steps being taken to address it.
Meet with community groups and local government
officials as appropriate.
Evaluate the company's in-house emergency response
capability and local government's capability to respond to company problems.
Do a benefit-cost analysis and include a qualitative
description of the intangible matters relevant to the
decision.

Consulting Design Professional Tasks

Provide professional services to a client seeking to
reduce and manage the seismic risk to his or her facilities.
Determine the owner's concerns and objectives and
which facilities are involved.
Ask how will priorities be established (risk, occupancy, function, vulnerability, or other factors).

Determine responsibility of corporate officers, fiduciary responsibility for the corporation, and personal
liability.

Determine desired performance objectives (which

very well may change after risk information and the
cost of rehabilitation alternatives are known).

Determine the status and flexibility of capital

replacement schedules and facility obsolescence.

Determine whether risk management measures, (e.g.,

emergency response and business resumption plans),
can be considered as alternatives.

Review short- and long-term use plans for each

building.

Be certain that the owner understands the possible

nonengineering issues, (e.g., relocation, business interruption, costs).

Consider competing needs for funds including pressure for short-term profits versus long-term protection of assets, including equipment, buildings, inventory.

Determine who is responsible for each point under

"Self-Motivated Owner" section above.

Describe the consequences of damage including:

business interruption; vulnerability to temporary and
permanent loss of market share; reputation for reliability; loss of employees to undamaged competitors;
injury to employees; political ramifications, especially if a major local employer or multiple residential or commercial property owner; liability for

Secure the engineering and risk management knowhow if it does not exist.
Outline any required internal training.
Hire subcontractor specialists.

80

The FourSteps in Detail

Determine how designing to the client's performance

objectives using the Guidelineswill affect your liability.

Determine how knowledge of risk will affect the liability of the firm and client.

81

Appendix B
BSSC SOCIETAL ISSUES PROJECT PARTICIPANTS
PROJECT OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE
Chairman
Eugene Zeller, Director of Planning and Building, Department of Planning and Building, Long Beach, California
ASCE Members
Paul Seaburg, Office of the Associate Dean, College of Engineering and Technology, Omaha, Nebraska
Ashvin Shah, Director of Engineering, American Society of Civil Engineers, Washington, D.C.
AT-C Members
Thomas G. Atkinson, Atkinson, Johnson and Spurrier, San Diego, California
Christopher Rojahn, Executive Director, Applied Technology Council, Redwood City, California
BSSC Members
Gerald H. Jones, Consultant, Kansas City, Missouri
James R. Smith, Executive Director, Building Seismic Safety Council, Washington, D.C.

BSSC PROJECT COMMITTEE

Chairman
Warner Howe, Consulting Structural Engineer, Germantown, Tennessee
Members
Gerald H. Jones, Kansas City, Missouri
Harry W. Martin, American Iron and Steel Institute, Auburn, California
Allan R. Porush, Structural Engineer, Dames and Moore, Los Angeles, California
F. Robert Preece, Preece/Goudie and Associates, San Francisco, California
William W. Stewart, FAIA, StewartwSchaberglArchitects, Clayton, Missouri
Societal Issues. Consultant
Robert A. Olson, President, Robert Olson Associates Inc., Sacramento, California

SEISMIC REHABILITATION ADVISORY PANEL

Chairman
Gerald H. Jones, Kansas City, Missouri
Members
David E. Allen, Structures Division, Institute of Research in Construction, National Research Council of
Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
John Battles. Southern Building Code Congress, International, Birmingham, Alabama

83

Appendix B

David C. Breiholz, Chairman, Existing Buildings Committee, Structural Engineers Association of California,
Lomita, California
Michael Caldwell, American Institute of Timber Construction, Englewood, Colorado
Terry Dooley, Morley Construction Company, Santa Monica, California
Steven J. Eder, EQE Engineering Consultants, San Francisco, California
S. K. Ghosh, Mt. Prospect, Illinois
Barry J. Goodno, Professor, School of Civil Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
Charles C. Gutberlet, US Army Corps of Engineers, Washington, D.C.
Harry W. Martin, American Iron and Steel Institute, Auburn, California
Margaret Pepin-Donat, National Park Service Retired, Edmonds, Washington
William Petak, Professor, Institute of Safety and Systems Management, University of Southern California, Los
Angeles, California
Howard Simpson, Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger, Arlington, Massachusetts
James E. Thomas, Duke Power Company, Charlotte, North Carolina
L. Thomas Tobin, Tobin & Associates, Mill Valley, California
EERI Committee Advisory Committee on Social and Policy Issues
Mary Comerio, University of California, Berkeley
Cynthia Hoover, City of Seattle, Washington
George Mader, Spangle Associates
Robert Olshansky, University of Illinois
Douglas Smits, City of Charleston, South Carolina
Susan Tubbesing, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute
Barbara Zeidman, City of Los Angeles, California

84

mmum

11!|1

THE COUNCIL: ITS

SPUROSE AND ACTIVITIES

Of the National Institute of Building Sciences

The Building Seismic Safety Council (BSSC) was established in 1979 under the auspices of the National Institute of Building Sciences as an entirely new type of instrument for dealing with the complex regulatory,
technical, social, and economic issues involved in developing and promulgating building earthquake risk
mitigation regulatory provisions that are national in scope. By bringing together in the BSSC all of the needed
expertise and all relevant public and private interests, it was believed that issues related to the seismic safety of
the built environment could be resolved and jurisdictional problems overcome through authoritative guidance
and assistance backed by a broad consensus.
The BSSC is an independent, voluntary membership body representing a wide variety of building community
interests (see pages 15-16 for a current membership list). Its fundamental purpose is to enhance public safety
by providing a national forum that fosters improved seismic safety provisions for use by the building community in the planning, design, construction, regulation, and utilization of buildings. To fulfill its purpose, the
BSSC:
Promotes the development of seismic safety provisions suitable for use throughout the United States;
u

Recommends, encourages, and promotes the adoption of appropriate seismic safety provisions in voluntary standards and model codes;

Assesses progress in the implementation of such provisions by federal, state, and local regulatory and
construction agencies;

*
*

Identifies opportunities for improving seismic safety regulations and practices and encourages public and
private organizations to effect such improvements;
Promotes the development of training and educational courses and materials for use by design professionals, builders, building regulatory officials, elected officials, industry representatives, other members
ofthe building community, and the public;
Advises government bodies on their programs of research, development, and implementation; and
Periodically reviews and evaluates research findings, practices, and experience and makes recommendations for incorporation into seismic design practices.

The BSSC's area of interest encompasses all building types, structures, and related facilities and includes explicit consideration and assessment of the social, technical, administrative, political, legal, and economic implications of its deliberations and recommendations. The BSSC believes that the achievement of its purpose is a
concern shared by all in the public and private sectors; therefore, its activities are structured to provide all interested entities (i.e., government bodies at all levels, voluntary organizations, business, industry, the design
profession, the construction industry, the research community, and the general public) with the opportunity to
participate. The BSSC also believes that the regional and local differences in the nature and magnitude of
potentially hazardous earthquake events require a flexible approach to seismic safety that allows for consideration of the relative risk, resources, and capabilities of each community.
The BSSC is committed to continued technical improvement of seismic design provisions, assessment of advances in engineering knowledge and design experience, and evaluation of earthquake impacts. It recognizes

85

that appropriate earthquake hazard risk reduction measures and initiatives should be adopted by existing
organizations and institutions and incorporated, whenever possible, into their legislation, regulations, practices,
rules, codes, relief procedures, and loan requirements so that these measures and initiatives become an integral
part of established activities, not additional burdens. Thus, the BSSC itself assumes no standards-making or
-promulgating role; rather, it advocates that code- and standards-formnulation organizations consider the
BSSC's recommendations for inclusion in their documents and standards.

IMPROVING THE SEISMIC SAFETY OF NEW BUILDINGS

The BSSC program directed toward improving the seismic safety of new buildings has been conducted with
funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). It is structured to create and maintain
authoritative, technically sound, up-to-date resource documents that can be used by the voluntary standards and
model code organizations, the building community, the research community, and the public as the foundation
for improved seismic safety design provisions.
The BSSC program began with initiatives taken by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Under an agreement with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST; formerly the National Bureau of Standards), Tentative Provisionsfor the Development ofSeismic Regulationsfor Buildings(referred to here as the
Tentative Provisions)was prepared by the Applied Technology Council (ATC). The ATC document was
described as the product of a "cooperative effort with the design professions, building code interests, and the
research community" intended to "...present, in one comprehensive document, the current state of knowledge
in the fields of engineering seismology and engineering practice as it pertains to seismic design and construction of buildings." The document, however, included many innovations, and the ATC explained that a careful
assessment was needed.
Following the issuance of the Tentative Provisionsin 1978, NIST released a technical note calling for . . . systematic analysis of the logic and internal consistency of [the Tentative Provisions]"and developed a plan for
assessing and implementing seismic design provisions for buildings. This plan called for a thorough review of
the Tentative Provisionsby all interested organizations; the conduct of trial designs to establish the technical
validity of the new provisions and to assess their economic impact; the establishment of a mechanism to encourage consideration and adoption of the new provisions by organizations promulgating national standards
and model codes; and educational, technical, and administrative assistance to facilitate implementation and
enforcement.
During this same period, other significant events occurred. In October 1977, Congress passed the Earthquake
HazardsReduction Act of 1977 (P.L. 95-124) and, in June 1978, the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction
Program (NEHRP) was created. Further, FEMA was established as an independent agency to coordinate all
emergency management functions at the federal level. Thus, the future disposition of the Tentative Provisions
and the 1978 NIST plan shifted to FEMA. The emergence of FEMA as the agency responsible for implementation of P.L. 95-124 (as amended) and the NEHRP also required the creation of a mechanism for obtaining
broad public and private consensus on both recommended improved building design and construction regulatory provisions and the means to be used in their promulgation. Following a series of meetings between representatives of the original participants in the NSF-sponsored project on seismic design provisions, FEMA, the
American Society of Civil Engineers and the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), the concept ofthe
Building Seismic Safety Council was born. As the concept began to take form, progressively wider public and
private participation was sought, culminating in a broadly representative organizing meeting in the spring of
1979, at which time a charter and organizational rules and procedures were thoroughly debated and agreed
upon.
The BSSC provided the mechanism or forum needed to encourage consideration and adoption of the new
provisions by the relevant organizations. A joint BSSC-NIST committee was formed to conduct the needed
review of the Tentative Provisions,which resulted in 198 recommendations for changes. Another joint BSSC11111111

86

NIST committee developed both the criteria by which the needed trial designs could be evaluated and the
specific trial design program plan. Subsequently, a BSSC-NIST Trial Design Overview Committee was created to revise the trial design plan to accommodate a multiphased effort and to refine the Tentative Provisions,
to the extent practicable, to reflect the recommendations generated during the earlier review.
Trial Designs
Initially, the BSSC trial design effort was to be conducted in two phases and was to include trial designs for
100 new buildings in 11 major cities, but financial limitations required that the program be scaled down. Ultimately, 17 design firms were retained to prepare trial designs for 46 new buildings in 4 cities with medium to
high seismic risk (10 in Los Angeles, 4 in Seattle, 6 in Memphis, 6 in Phoenix) and in 5 cities with medium to
low seismic risk (3 in Charleston, South Carolina, 4 in Chicago, 3 in Ft. Worth, 7 in New York, and 3 in
St. Louis). Alternative designs for six of these buildings also were included.
The firms participating in the trial design program were: ABAM Engineers, Inc.; Alfred Benesch and Company; Allen and Hoshall; Bruce C. Olsen; Datum/Moore Partnership; Ellers, Oakley, Chester, and Rike, Inc.;
Enwright Associates. Inc.; Johnson and Nielsen Associates; Klein and Hoffman, Inc.; Magadini-Alagia Associates; Read Jones Christoffersen, Inc.; Robertson, Fowler, and Associates; S. B. Barnes and Associates; Skilling
Ward Rogers Barkshire, Inc.; Theiss Engineers, Inc.; Weidlinger Associates; and Wheeler and Gray.
For each of the 52 designs, a set of general specifications was developed, but the responsible design engineering firms were given latitude to ensure that building design parameters were compatible with local construction
practice. The designers were not permitted, however, to change the basic structural type even if an alternative
structural type would have cost less than the specified type under the early version of the Provisions, and this
constraint may have prevented some designers from selecting the most economical system.
Each building was designed twice - once according to the amended Tentative Provisionsand again according
to the prevailing local code for the particular location of the design. In this context, basic structural designs
(complete enough to assess the cost of the structural portion of the building), partial structural designs (special
studies to test specific parameters, provisions, or objectives), partial nonstructural designs (complete enough to
assess the cost of the nonstructural portion of the building), and design/construction cost estimates were developed.
This phase of the BSSC program concluded with publication of a draft version of the recommended provisions,
the NEHRP Recommended Provisionsforthe Development ofSeismic Regulationsfor New Buildings, an overview of the Provisionsrefinement and trial design efforts, and the design firms' reports.
The 19.85 Edition of the NEHAP Recommended Provisions
The draft version represented an interim set of provisions pending their balloting by the BSSC member organizations. The first ballot, conducted in accordance with the BSSC Charter, was organized on a chapter-bychapter basis. As required by BSSC procedures, the ballot provided for four responses: "yes," "yes with reservations," "no," and "abstain." All "yes with reservations" and "no" votes were to be accompanied by an
explanation of the reasons for the vote and the "no" votes were to be accompanied by specific suggestions for
change if those changes would change the negative vote to an affirmative.
All comments and explanations received with "yes with reservations" and "no" votes were compiled, and proposals for dealing with them were developed for consideration by the Technical Overview Committee and,
subsequently, the BSSC Board of Direction. The draft provisions then were revised to reflect the changes
deemed appropriate by the BSSC Board and the revision was submitted to the BSSC membership for balloting
again.
As a result of this second ballot, virtually the entire provisions document received consensus approval, and a
special BSSC Council meeting was held in November 1985 to resolve as many of the remaining issues -as
possible. The 1985 Edition -ofthe N.EHRP Recommended Provisionsthen was transmitted to FEMA for
publication in December 1985.

87

During the next three years, a number of documents were published to support and complement the 1985
NEHRP Recommended Provisions. They included a guide to application of the Provisionsin earthquake-resistant building design, a nontechnical explanation of the Provisionsfor the lay reader, and a handbook for interested members of the building community and others explaining the societal implications of utilizing improved
seismic safety provisions and a companion volume of selected readings.
The 1988 Edition
The need for continuing revision of the Provisions had been anticipated since the onset of the BSSC program
and the effort to update the 1985 Edition for reissuance in 1988 began in January 1986. During the update
effort, nine BSSC Technical Committees (TCs) studied issues concerning seismic risk maps, structural design,
foundations, concrete, masonry, steel, wood, architectural and mechanical and electrical systems, and regulatory use. The Technical Committees worked under the general direction of a Technical Management Committee (TMC), which was composed of a representative of each TC as well as additional members identified by
the BSSC Board to provide balance.
The TCs and TMC worked throughout 1987 to develop specific proposals for changes needed in the 1985
Provisions. In December 1987, the Board reviewed these proposals and decided upon a set of 53 for submittal
to the BSSC membership for ballot. Approximately half of the proposals reflected new issues while the other
half reflected efforts to deal with unresolved 1985 edition issues.
The balloting was conducted on a proposal-by-proposal basis in February-April 1988. Fifty of the proposals
on the ballot passed and three failed. All comments and "yes with reservation" and "no" votes received as a
result of the ballot were compiled for review by the TMC. Many of the comments could be addressed by
making minor editorial adjustments and these were approved by the BSSC Board. Other comments were
found to be unpersuasive or in need of further study during the next update cycle (to prepare the 1991 Provisions). A number of comments persuaded the TMC and Board that a substantial alteration of some balloted
proposals was necessary, and it was decided to submit these matters (11 in all) to the BSSC membership for
reballot during June-July 1988. Nine of the eleven reballot proposals passed and two failed.
On the basis of the ballot and reballot results, the 1988 Provisionswas prepared and transmitted to FEMA for
publication in August 1988. A report describing the changes made in the 1985 edition and issues in need of
attention in the next update cycle then was prepared. Efforts to update the complementary reports published to
support the 1985 edition also were initiated. Ultimately, the following publications were updated to reflect the
1988 Edition and reissued by FEMA: the Guide to Application ofthe Provisions, the handbook discussing
societal implications (which was extensively revised and retitled Seismic Considerationsfor Communities at
Risk), and several Seismic Considerationshandbooks (which are described below).
The 1991 Edition
During the effort to produce the 1991 Provisions,a Provisions Update Committee (PUC) and 11 Technical
Subcommittees addressed seismic hazard maps, structural design criteria and analysis, foundations, cast-inplace and precast concrete structures, masonry structures, steel structures, wood structures, mechanical-electrical systems and building equipment and architectural elements, quality assurance, interface with codes and
standards, and composite structures. Their work resulted in 58 substantive and 45 editorial proposals for
change to the 1988 Provisions.
The PUC approved more than 90 percent of the proposals and, in January 1991, the BSSC Board accepted the
PUC-approved proposals for balloting by the BSSC member organizations in April-May 1991.
Following the balloting, the PUC considered the comments received with "yes with reservations" and "no"
votes and prepared 21 reballot proposals for consideration by the BSSC member organizations. The reballoting was completed in August 1991 with the approval by the BSSC member organizations of 19 of the reballot proposals.

88

On the basis of the ballot and reballot results, the 1991 Provisionswas prepared and transmitted to FEMA for
publication in September 1991. Reports describing the chances made in the 1988 Edition and issues in need
of attention in the next update cycle then were prepared.
In August 1992, in response to a request from FEMA, the BSSC initiated an effort to continue its structured
information dissemination and instruction/training effort aimed at stimulating widespread use of the NEHRP
Recommended Provisions. The primary objectives of the effort were to bring several of the publications
complementing the Provisionsinto conformance with the 1991 Edition in a manner reflecting other related
developments (e.g., the fact that all three model codes now include requirements based on the Provisions)and
to bring instructional course materials currently being used in the BSSC seminar series (described below) into
conformance with the 1991 Provisions.
The 1994 Edition
The effort to structure the 1994 PUC and its technical subcommittees was initiated in late 1991. By early
1992, 12 Technical Subcommittees (TSs) were established to address seismic hazard mapping, loads and
analysis criteria, foundations and geotechnical considerations, cast-in-place and precast concrete structures,
masonry structures, steel structures, wood structures. mechanical-electrical systems and building equipment
and architectural elements, quality assurance, interface with codes and standards, and composite steel and concrete structures, and base isolation/energy dissipation.
The TSs worked throughout 1992 and 1993 and, at a December 1994 meeting, the PUC voted to forward 52
proposals to the BSSC Board with its recommendation that they be submitted to the BSSGC member organizations for balloting. Three proposals not approved by the PUC also were forwarded to the Board because 20
percent of the PUC members present at the meeting voted to do so. Subsequently, .an additional proposal to
address needed terminology changes also was developed and forwarded to the Board.
The Board subsequently accepted the PUC-approved proposals; it also accepted one of the proposals submitted
under the `'20 percent" rule but revised the proposal to be balloted as four separate items. The BSSC member
organization balloting of the resulting 57 proposals occurred in March-May 1994, with 42 of the 54 voting
member organizations submitting their ballots. Fifty-three of the proposals passed, and the ballot results and
comments were reviewed by the PUC in July 1994. Twenty substantive changes that would require reballoting
were identified. Of the four proposals that failed the ballot, three were withdrawn by the TS chairmen and one
was substantially modified and also was accepted for reballoting. The BSSC Board of Direction accepted the
PUC recommendations except in one case where it deemed comments to be persuasive and made an additional
substantive change to be reballoted by the BSSC member organizations.
The second ballot package composed of 22 changes was considered by the BSSC member organizations in
September-October 1994. The PUC then assessed the second ballot results and made its recommendations to
the BSSC Board in November. One needed revision identified later was considered by the PUC Executive
Committee in December. The final copy of the 1994 Edition of the Provisions including a summary of the
differences between the 1991 and 1994 Editions was delivered to FEMA in March 1995.
1997 Update Effort
In September 1994, NIBS entered into a contract with FEMA for initiation of the 39-month BSSC 1997 Provisions update effort. Late in 1994, the BSSC member organization representatives and alternate representatives
and the BSSC Board of Direction were asked to identify individuals to serve on the 1997 PUC and its TSs.
The 1997 PUC was constituted early in 1995, and 12 PUC Technical Subcommittees were established to ad-dress design criteria and analysis, foundations and geotechnical considerations, cast-in-place/precast concrete
structures, masonry structures, steel structures, wood structures, mechanical-electrical systems and building
equipment and architectural elements, quality assurance, interface with codes and standards, composite steel
and concrete structures, energy dissipation and base isolation, and nonbuilding structures.

89

As part of this effort, the BSSC has developed a revised seismic design procedure for use by engineers and architects for inclusion in the 1997 NEHRP Recommended Provisions. Unlike the design procedure based on
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) peak acceleration and peak velocity-related acceleration ground motion maps
developed in the 1970s and used in earlier editions of the Provisions,the new design procedure is based on
recently revised USGS spectral response maps. The proposed design procedure involves new design maps
based on the USGS spectral response maps and a process specified within the body of the Provisions. This
task has been conducted with the cooperation of the USGS (under a Memorandum of Understanding signed by
the BSSC and USGS) and under the guidance of a five-member Management Committee (MC). A Seismic
Design Procedure Group (SDPG) has been responsible for developing the design procedure.
More than 200 individuals have participated in the 1997 update effort, and more than 165 substantive proposals for change have been developed. A series of editorial/organizational changes also have been made. All
draft TS, SDPG, and PUC proposals for change were finalized in late February 1997. In early March, the PUC
Chairman presented to the BSSC Board of Direction the PUC's recommendations concerning proposals for
change to be submitted to the BSSC member organizations for balloting, and the Board accepted these recommendations.
The first round of balloting concluded in early June 1997. Of the 158 items on the official ballot, only 8 did
not pass; however, many comments were submitted with "no" and "yes with reservations" votes. These comments were compiled for distribution to the PUC, which met in mid-July to review the comments, receive TS
responses to the comments and recommendations for change, and formulate its recommendations concerning
what items should be submitted to the BSSC member organizations for a second ballot. The PUC deliberations resulted in the decision to recommend to the BSSC Board that 28 items be included in the second ballot.
The PUC Chairman subsequently presented the PUC's recommendations to the Board, which accepted those
recommendations.
The second round of balloting was completed on October 27. All but one proposal passed; however, a number
of comments on virtually all the proposals were submitted with the ballots and were immediately compiled for
consideration by the PUC. The PUC Executive Committee met in December to formulate its recommendations
to the Board, and the Board subsequently accepted those recommendations.
The PUC also has identified issues remaining for consideration in the next update cycle and has identified
technical issues in need of study. The camera-ready version of the 1997 NEHRP Recommended Provisions,
including an appendix describing the differences between the 1994 and 1997 edition, was transmitted to
FEMA in February 1998. The contract for the 1997 update effort has been extended by FEMA to June 30,
1998, to permit development of a CD-ROM for presentation of the design map data.
Code Resource Development Effort
In mid-1996, FEMA asked the BSSC to initiate an effort to generate a code resource document based on the
1997 Edition of the Provisionsfor use by the International Code Council in adopting seismic provisions for the
first edition of the InternationalBuilding Code to be published in 2000.
The orientation meeting of the Code Resource Development Committee (CRDC) appointed to conduct this
effort was held in Denver on October 17. At this meeting, the group was briefed on the status of the Provisions update effort and formulated a tentative plan and schedule for its efforts.
The group next met in January 1997 to review a preliminary code language/format version of the 1997 Provisions and to develop additional needed input. As a result of this meeting, several task groups were established
to focus on specific topics and to provide revisions to the preliminary draft. A new draft incorporating these
comments then was developed for further refinement by the CRDC. A copy also was delivered to the members
of the IBC Structural Subcommittee so that they would begin to have a feeling for where and how the seismic
provisions would fit into their code requirements.

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The CRDC met again in February to review the second draft of the code language/format version of the 1997
Provisions. This meeting was held just preceding a PUC meeting and changes made by the PUC subsequently
were incorporated into the CRDC draft. NIBS and CRDC Chairman Gerald Jones presented this composite
draft to the IBC Structural Subcommittee on March 1, 1997.
In July, the CRDC met to develop comments on the IBC working draft to be submitted to the ICC in preparation for an August public comment forum. The comments generally reflect actions taken by the PUC in response to comments submitted with the first ballot on the changes proposed for the 1997 NEHRP RecommendedProvisions as well as CRDC recommendations concerning changes made in the original CRDC submittal by the IBC Structural Subcommittee. CRDC representatives then attended the August forum to support
the CRDC recommendations.
The CRDC next met in mid-December to prepare comments on the first published version of the IBC. The
proposed "code changes' developed by the committee were submitted to the IBC on January 5, 1998. Subsequent CRDC efforts are expected to focus on supporting the CRDC-developed provisions throughout the code
adoption process.
The 2000 Edition
In September 1997, NIBS entered into a contract with FEMA for initiation of the 48-month BSSC effort to
update the 1997 NEHRP Recommended Provisionsfor Seismic Regudationsfor New Buildings and Other
Structures for re-issuance in 2000 and prepare code changes based on the 2000, Provisionsfor submittal to the
IWC. The BSSC member organization representatives and alternate representatives and the BSSC Board of
Direction were asked to identify candidates to participate; the individuals serving on the 1997 update committees were contacted to determine if they are interested in participating in the new effort; and a press release on
the 2000 update effort was issued. In addition, the BSSC Board asked 1997 PUC Chair William Holmes of
Rutherford and Chekene, San Francisco, if he would be willing to chair the 2000 PUC and he accepted.
In lieu of the Seismic Design Procedure Group (SDPG) used in the 1997 update, the BSSC will re-establish
Technical Subcommittee 1, Seismic Design Mapping, used in earlier updates of the Provisions. This subcommittee will be composed of an equal number of representatives from the earth science community, including
representatives from the USGS, and the engineering community. A sufficient number of members of the
SDPG will be included to ensure a smooth transition.
An additional 11 subcommittees will address seismic design and analysis, foundations and geotechnical considerations, cast-in-place and precast concrete structures, masonry structures, steel structures, wood structures,
mechanical-electrical systems and building equipment and architectural elements, quality assurance, composite
steel and concrete structures, base isolation and energy dissipation, and nonbuilding structures and one ad hoc
task group to develop appropriate anchorage requirements for concrete/masonry/wood elements. Unlike earlier
updates, it is not anticipated that a technical subcommittee will be appointed to serve as the interface with
codes and standards; rather, the PUC will appoint a task group to serve as the liaison with the the model code
and standards organizations and three model code representatives will serve on the PUC.
The BSSC, through the PUC and its TS's, will identify major technical issues to be addressed duringthe 2000
update of the NlEHRP RecommInnended Provisions,assess the basis for change to the 1997 Edition, resolve
technical issues, and develop proposals for change. The results of recent relevant research and lessons learned
from earthquakes occurring prior to and during the duration of the project will be given consideration at all
stages of this process. Particular attention will be focused on-those technical problems identified but unresolved during the preparation of the 1997 Edition. Attention also will be given to the improvement -ofcriteria
to eventually allow for design based on desired building performance levels reflecting the approach taken in
the NEHRP Guidelinesforthe Seismic RehabilitationofBuildings.
The PUC also will coordinate its efforts with those individuals working with the ICC to develop the IBC.
Changes recommended by those individuals will be submitted to the PUC for consideration and changes
developed by the PUC will be formatted for consideration in the IBC development process.

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As part of the update process, the BSSC also will develop a simplified design procedure in order to improve
use of the Provisionsin areas of low and moderate seismic hazard. This process will be performed by a separate task group reporting directly to TS2, Seismic Design and Analysis.
As in previous update efforts, two rounds of balloting by the BSSC member organizations are planned, and
delivery of the final consensus-approved 2000 Provisions is expected to occur in December 2000. A report
identifying the major differences between the 1997 and the 2000 editions of the Provisionsand a letter report
describing unresolved issues and major technical topics in need of further study also will be prepared.
Following completion of the 2000 Provisions,the BSSC will establish a procedure whereby the PUC will
prepare code language versions of changes of the Provisionsfor submittal as proposed code changes for the
2003 Edition of the IBC. These code changes will be developed for PUC consideration and approval by a
Code Liaison Group with the assistance of a consultant experienced in the code change process. In addition,
the BSSC will designate three members of the PUC who, along with the consultant, will formally submit the
code changes prior to the IBC deadline.
Information Dissemination/Technology Transfer
The BSSC continues in its efforts to stimulate widespread use of the Provisions. In addition to the issuance of
a variety of publications that complement the Provisions,over the past seven years the BSSC has developed
materials for use in and promoted the conduct of a series of seminars on application of the Provisionsamong
relevant professional associations. To date, more than 90 of these seminars have been conducted with a wide
variety of cosponsors and more than 70,000 reports have been distributed.
Other information dissemination efforts have involved the participation of BSSC representatives in a wide
variety of meetings and conferences, BSSC participation in development of curriculum for a FEMA Emergency Management Institute course on the Provisionsfor structural engineers and other design professionals,
issuance of press releases, development of in-depth articles for the publications of relevant groups, work with
Building Officials and Code Administrators International (BOCA) that resulted in use of the Provisionsin the
BOCA NationalBuilding Code and the Southern Building Code Congress International's StandardBuilding
Code, and cooperation with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) that resulted in use of the Provisions in the 1993 and 1995 Editions of Standard ASCE 7. In addition, many requests for specific types of
information and other forms of technical support are received and responded to monthly.
During 1996, as part of the efforts of ajoint committee of the BSSC, Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium,
Southern Building Code Congress International and Insurance Institute for Property Loss Reduction to develop
mechanisms for the seismic training of building code officials, the BSSC contributed its expertise in the
development of a manual for use in such training efforts.
Information dissemination efforts during 1997 have been somewhat curtailed so that resources can be devoted
to introduction of the 1997 Provisionsand related efforts. In this regard, NIBS has requested and received an
extension of its existing information dissemination contract with FEMA through September 1998 to permit,
among other things, the development of a revised version of a NontechnicalExplanationofthe NEHRP Recommended Provisionsthat reflects the 1997 Edition and the structuring of an updated plan to provide informative materials concerning the Provisionsand the update process.

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IMPROVING THE SEISMIC SAFETY OF EXISTING BUILDINGS

Guidefines/Cornmentzry Development Project
In August 199 1, NIBS entered into a cooperative agreement with FEMA for a comprehensive 6-year program
leading to the development of a set of nationally applicable guidelines for te seismic rehabilitation of existing
buildings. Under this agreement, the BSSC serves as program manager with the American Society of Civil
Engineers (ASCE) and the Applied Technology Council (ATC) working as subcontractors. Initially, FEMA
provided funding for a program definition activity designed to generate the detailed work plan for the overall
program. The work plan was completed in April 1992 and in September FEMA contracted with NIBS for the
remainder of the effort.
The major objectives of the project were to develop a set of technically sound, nationally applicable guidelines
(with commentary) for the seismic rehabilitation of buildings to serve as a primary resource on the seismic
rehabilitation of buildings for the use of design professionals, model code and standards organizations, state
and local building regulatory personnel, and educators; to develop building community consensus regarding
the guidelines; and to develop the basis of a plan for stimulating widespread acceptance and application of the
guidelines.
The project work was structured to ensure that the technical guidelines writing effort benefits from: consider.ation of the results of completed and ongoing technical efforts and research activities as well as societal issues,
public policy concerns, and the recommendations presented in *an earlier FEMA-funded report on issues identification and resolution; cost data on application of rehabilitation procedures; the reactions of potential users;
and consensus review by a broad spectrum of building community interests.
While overall management remained the responsibility of the BSSC, responsibility for conduct of the specific
project tasks were shared by the BSSC with ASCE (which organized user workshops and conducted literature
review and other research activities) and ATC (which was responsible for drafting the Guidelines, its Commentary, and a volume of example applications as well as conducting a study to assess the validity of several
concepts being proposed for use in the Guidelines). Specific BSSC tasks were conducted under the guidance
of a BSSC Project Committee. To ensure project continuity and direction, a Project Oversight Committee
(POC) was responsible to the BSSC Board for accomplishment of the project objectives and the conduct of
project tasks. Further, a Seismic Rehabilitation Advisory Panel was established to review project products and
to advise the POC and, if appropriate, the BSSC Board, on the approach being taken, problems arising or
anticipated, and progress being made. In addition, three workshops were held over the course of the project to
provide the Guidelines/Commentarywriters with input from potential users of the documents.
The BSSC Board of Direction accepted the 100-percent-complete draft of the Guidelinesand Commentawy for
consensus balloting in mid-August 1996. The first round of balloting occurred in October-December with a
ballot symposium for the voting representatives held in November 1996.
The Guidelines and Commentary were approved by the BSSC membership; however, a significant number of
comments were received. The ATC Senior Technical Committee reviewed these comments in detail and
commissioned members of the technical teams that developed the Guidelinesto develop detailed responses and
to formulate any needed proposals for change reflecting the comments. This effort resulted in 48 proposals for
change to be submitted to the BSSC member organizations for a second round of balloting.
Following acceptance of the second ballot materials by the BSSC Board, the voting occurred in June-July
1997. Again the results were compiled for review by ATC. Meeting in September 1997, the Project Oversight
Committee received recommendations from ATC regarding comment resolution; it was concluded that none of
the changes proposed in response to ballot comments were sufficiently substantive to warrant reballoting.
Subsequently, the POC conclusion was presented to the BSSC Board, which agreed and approved finalization
ofthe Guidelines and Commentary for submittal to FEMA for publication. The camera-ready versions -ofthe
documents then were prepared and transmitted to FEMA on September 30, 1997.

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During the course of the project, BSSC Project Committee recommendations resulted in the following additions to the NIBS/BSSC contract with FEMA for the project: the BSSC ballot symposium for voting representatives mentioned above; the case studies program described below; and an effort to develop the curriculum for
and conduct a series of two-day educational seminars to introduce and provide training in use of the Guidelines
to practicing structural and architectural engineers, seismic engineering educators and students, building officials and technical staff, interested contractors, hazard mitigation officers, and others.
Case Studies Project
The case studies project is an extension of the multiyear project leading to publication of the NEHRP Guidelinesfor the Seismic RehabilitationofBuildings and its Commentary in late 1997. The project is expected to
contribute to the credibility of the Guidelines by providing potential users with representative real-world application data and to provide FEMA with the information needed to determine whether and when to update the
Guidelines.
Although the Guidelines documents reflect expert experience, current research, and innovative theories, the
case studies project is expected to answer a number of critical questions: Can the Guidelines and its Commentary be understood and applied by practicing design professionals of varying levels of experience? Do the
Guidelinesresult in rational designs generated in a reasonable and logical way? What are the costs involved in
seismically rehabilitating various types of buildings to the optional levels of performance both above and
below the Guidelines"'basic safety objective"? Are the requirements to achieve the "basic safety objective"
equivalent to, less stringent than, or more stringent than current practice for new construction?
Specifically, the objectives of the project are to: (a) test the usability of the NEHRP Guidelinesfor the Seismic
RehabilitationofBuildings in authentic applications in order to determine the extent to which practicing design
engineers and architects find the Guidelinesdocuments, including the structural analysis procedures and acceptance criteria, to be presented in understandable language and in a clear, logical fashion that permits valid
engineering determinations to be made, and evaluate the ease of transition from current engineering practices
to the new concepts presented in the Guidelines;(b) assess the technical adequacy of the-Guidelines design and
analysis procedures to determine if application of the procedures results (in the judgment of the designer) in
rational designs of building components for corrective rehabilitation measures and whether the designs that
result adequately meet the selected performance levels when compared to current practice and in light of the
knowledge and experience of the designer; (c) assess whether the Guidelinesacceptance criteria are properly
calibrated to result in component designs that provide permissible values of such key factors as drift, component strength demand, and inelastic deformation at selected performance levels; (d) develop data on the costs
of rehabilitation design and construction to meet the Guidelines"'basic safety objective" as well as the higher
performance levels included and assess whether the anticipated higher costs of advanced engineering analysis
result in worthwhile savings compared to the cost of constructing more conservative design solutions arrived at
by a less systematic engineering effort; and (e) compare the acceptance criteria of the Guidelineswith the
prevailing seismic design requirements for new buildings in the building location to determine whether requirements for achieving the Guidelines"'basic safety objective" are equivalent to or more or less stringent
than those expected of new buildings.
It is planned that seismic rehabilitation designs will be developed for over 40 buildings selected insofar as
practicable from an inventory of buildings already determined to be seismically deficient under the implementation program of Executive Order 12941 and considered "typical of existing structures located throughout the
nation." Where federal buildings from this inventory do not represent the full spectrum of buildings which
need to be studied, case study candidates will be sought from among privately owned buildings or those owned
by other levels of government. Qualified structural engineering or architectural/engineering (A/E) firms will
be engaged to produce detailed designs for seismic rehabilitation of the lateral-load-resisting systems, foundations, and critical nonstructural elements of the selected buildings, and to make specified comparisons with
current practices and costs. Each design contractor's products and experiences using the Guidelines will be
assessed in order to generate credible data that will establish the technical validity of the Guidelines, define

94

their economic impact, and identify any needed changes in the Guidelines or highlight areas in need of research and investigation before a Guidelinesupdate is planned. Many parameters and possible combinations
thereof will be considered in addition to basic building types and seismic deficiencies.
The case studies will include consideration of numerous design approaches, options, and determinations to
give a balanced representation, within the resources <available, of the following factors: different performance
levels and ranges, both systematic (linear/nonlinear, static/dynamic) and simplified analysis methods as presented in the Guidelines, alternate designs and cost comparisons for the same building provided by more than
one design firm, different structural systems, varying seismicity (high, medium, and low), short and stiff versus
tall and flexible building types, rehabilitation Guidelines compared to current new construction practices,
geographic dispersion of cases among seismic risk areas, presence of auxiliary energy dispersion systems or
base isolation, and historical preservation status of building.
The project is being guided by the Case Studies Project Committee (CSPC) chaired by Daniel Shapiro, Principal Engineer, SOH and Associates, Structural Engineers, San Francisco, California. The members are: Andrew A. Adelman, P.E., General Manager, Deparfnent of Building and Safety, City of Los Angeles, California; John Baals, P.E., Interior Seismic Safety Coordinator, Structural Analysis Group, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Denver, Colorado; Jacob -Grossman, Principal, Rosenwasser/ Grossman, Consulting Engineers, New
York, New York; Edwin T. Huston, Vice President, Smith & Huston, Inc., Seattle, Washington; Col. Guy E.
Jester, St. Louis, Missouri; Clarkson W. Pinkham, President, S B Barnes Associates, Los Angeles, California;
William W. Stewart, FAIA, Stewart-Schaberg/Architects, Clayton, Missouri; Lowell Shields, Capitol Engineering Consultants, Sacramento, California; Glenn Bell (alternate Andre S. Lamontagne), Simpson, Gumpertz
& Heger Inc., Arlington, Massachusetts; Steven C. Sweeney, U.S. Army Construction and Engineering Research Laboratory, Champaign, Illinois.
At its organization meeting in May 1997, the CSPC reviewed the background and structure of the project,
developed an initial work plan/project schedule, and defined the roles of the various participants. The CSPC
also established three subcommittees to address the development of criteria for building selection, design
professional selection, and contractor requests for proposals. In addition to the architects/engineers who will
be engaged to perform the case studies designs, the project will utilize a paid Project Technical Advisor and a
Design Assessment Panel of professionals knowledgeable about the content and use of the Guidelines.
In July, the CSPC met again to review letters of interest and resumes for the advertised position of the Project
Technical Advisor: initial selection recommendations were developed for action by the BSSC Board and
subsequently resulted in a contract with Andrew T. Merovich of A. T. Merovich and Associates, San Francisco, California. The subcommittee responsible for development of building selection criteria also presented a
matrix for the selection and matching of.available buildings.
The case studies project was posted in the Commerce Business Daily and in the Official Proposals section of
EngineeringNews Record. These postings resulted in receipt of 149 expressions of interest; of these, 133
appear to be qualified to move into the next stage of the selection process.
The CSPC is scheduled to meet again on December 2 to finalize the list of buildings recommended for study,
approve a draft of the "Request for Qualifications" (RFQ) and contractor selection criteria currently being
developed, and identify individuals to serve on the Design Assessment Panel. FEMA has asked that two of the
case studies be coordinated with its Disaster Resistant Communities effort by incorporating one building in
Seattle. Washington, and one in Oakland, California.
The latest project schedule shows the case study designs being accomplished from May through September
1998 with the final project report to be submitted to FEMA by the end of March 1999.
Earlier Projects, Focusing on Evaluation and Rehabilitation Techniques
An earlier FEMA-funded project was designed to provide consensus-backed approval of publications on
seismic hazard evaluation and strengthening techniques for existing buildings. This effort involved identifying

915

and resolving major technical issues in two preliminary documents developed for FEMA by others - a handbook for seismic evaluation of existing buildings prepared by the Applied Technology Council (ATC) and a
handbook of techniques for rehabilitating existing buildings to resist seismic forces prepared by URS/John A.
Blume and Associates (URS/Blume); revising the documents for balloting by the BSSC membership; balloting
the documents in accordance with the BSSC Charter; assessing the ballot results; developing proposals to
resolve the issues raised; identifying any unresolvable issues; and preparing copies of the documents that
reflect the results of the balloting and a summary of changes made and unresolved issues. Basically, this
consensus project was directed by the BSSC Board and a 22-member Retrofit of Existing Buildings (REB)
Committee composed of individuals representing the needed disciplines and geographical areas and possessing
special expertise in the seismic rehabilitation of existing buildings. The consensus approved documents (the
NEHRP Handbookfor the Seismic EvaluationofExisting Buildings and the NEHRP Handbook of Techniques
for the Seismic RehabilitationofExistingBuildings) were transmitted to FEMA in mid- 1992.
The BSSC also was involved in an even earlier project with the ATC and the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute to develop an action plan for reducing earthquake hazards to existing buildings. The action
plan that resulted from this effort prompted FEMA to fund a number of projects, including those described
above.
Assessment of the San Francisco Opera House
In October 1994, the NIBS-BSSC initiated an effort to provide FEMA with objective expert advice concerning
the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House. The Opera House, constructed circa 1920 with a steel frame
clad and infilled with masonry, was damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake and the city of San Francisco
subsequently petitioned FEMA for supplemental funding of approximately $33 million to cover the costs of a
complete seismic upgrade of the building under the StaffordAct, which provides funding for work when local
building code upgrade requirements are met. In this case, the San FranciscoBuilding Code was the local code
in effect. The effort was structured to involve three phases, ifwarranted, and was to be conducted by a threemember Independent Review Panel of experts knowledgeable and experienced in building codes and building
code administration.
During Phase I, the Review Panel conducted an unbiased, expert review of the applicable code sections pertinent to the repair of earthquake damage in order to provide FEMA with a definitive interpretation of such
terms as "how much" change/repair of "what nature" would be sufficient to require complete seismic upgrading of a building of the same general type and construction as the Opera House. It reviewed all relevant,
immediately available information about the Opera House case provided by FEMA and the city and the relevant portions of the San FranciscoBuilding Code and other similar building codes pertinent to the repair of
earthquake-caused damage to buildings and prepared and delivered to FEMA in February 1995 a preliminary
report of its findings.
At this point, the Panel was informed by FEMA that the city of San Francisco had rescinded its request indicating that the "proposed determination on eligibility for funding through review and recommendation by an
independent and impartial review body from NIBS" would not be necessary. Later, however, FEMA asked
that NIBS-BSSC complete Phase I so that it would be better prepared should other similar situations arise.
Thus, the Panel continued and delivered a final report to FEMA in July 1995.

IMPROVING THE SEISMIC SAFETY OF NEW AND EXISTING LIFELINES

Given the fact that buildings continue to be useful in a seismic emergency only if the services on which they
depend continue to function, the BSSC developed an action plan for the abatement of seismic hazards to lifelines to provide FEMA and other government agencies and private sector organizations with a basis for their
long-range planning. The action plan was developed through a consensus process utilizing the special talents

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of individuals-and organizations involved in the planning, design, construction, operation, and regulation of
lifeline facilities and systems.
Five lifeline categories were considered: water and sewer facilities, transportation facilities, communication
facilities, electric power facilities, and gas and liquid fuel lines. A workshop involving more than 65 participants and the preparation of over 40 issue papers was held. Each lifeline category was addressed by a separate
panel and overview groups focused on political, economic, social, legal, regulatory, and seismic risk issues.
An Action Plan Committee composed of the chairman of each workshop panel and overview group was appointed to draft the final action plan for review and comment by all workshop participants. The project reports, including the action plan and a definitive six-volume set of workshop proceedings, were transmitted to
FEMA in May 1987.
In recognition of both the complexity and importance of lifelines and their susceptibility to disruption as a
result of earthquakes and other natural hazards (hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding), FEMA subsequently concluded that the lifeline problem could best be approached through a nationally coordinated and structured program aimed at abating the risk to lifelines from earthquakes as well as other natural hazards. Thus, in 1988,
FEM4A asked the BSSC's parent institution, the National Institute of Buildings Sciences, to provide expert
recommendations concerning appropriate and effective strategies and approaches to use in implementing such
a program.
The effort, conducted for NIBS by an ad hoc Panel on Lifelines with the assistance of me BSSC, resulted in a
report recommending that the federal government, working through FEMIA, structure a nationally coordinated,
comprehensive program for mitigating the risk to lifelines from seismic and other natural hazards that focuses
on awareness and education, vulnerability assessment, design criteria and standards, regulatory policy, and
continuing guidance. Identified were a number of specific actions to be taken during the next three to six years
to initiate the program.

MULTIHAZARD, ACTIVITIES
Multihazard Assessment Forum
In 1993, FE-MA contracted with NIBS for the BSSC to organize and hold a forum intended to explore how
best to formulate an integrated approach to mitigating the effects of various natural hazards under the National
Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. More than 50 experts in various disciplines concerning natural
hazards risk abatement participated in the June 1994 forum and articulated the benefits of pursuing an integrated approach to natural hazards risk abatement. A BSSC steering committee then developed a report, An
IntegratedApproachto NaturalHazardsRisk Mitigation, based on the forum presentations and discussion that
urged FEMIA to initiate an effort to create a National Multihazard Mitigation Council structured and charged to
integrate and coordinate public and private efforts to mitigate the risk from natural hazards. This report xvas
delivered to FEMA in early 1995.
Multihazard Council Program Definition and Initiation
In September 1995, the BSSC negotiated with FEMA a modification of an existing contract to provide for
conduct of the first phase of a longer term effort devoted to stimulating the application of technology and
experience data in mitigating the risks to buildings posed by multiple natural hazards and development of
natural hazard risk mitigation measures and provisions that are national in scope for use by those involved in
the planning, design, construction, regulation, and utilization of the built environment. During this first phase,
the BSSC is conducting a program definition and initiation effort expected to culminate in the establishment of
a National Multihazard Mitigation Council (NMMC) to integrate and coordinate public and private efforts to
mitigate the risks associated with natural hazards as recommended in the report cited above.

97

To conduct the project, the BSSC established a 12-member "blue ribbon" Multihazard Project Steering Committee (MPSC) composed of well-respected leaders in the natural hazards risk mitigation community. The
MPSC, which met in July and December 1996 and February 1997, to developed an organizational structure
for the proposed council, a draft charter, a draft mission statement, and a preliminary outline for a work plan.
Due consideration has been given to the fact that the proposed council will need to maximize the use of resources through mitigation of risks utilizing common measures; promote cost-effective loss reduction, effective
technology transfer, conflict identification, and coordination of performance objectives; improve efficiency in
the development of codes and standards; provide an open forum for articulation of different needs and perspectives; facilitate policy adoption and implementation; fill educational and public awareness needs; and provide a
single credible source for recommendations and directions. In addition, the MPSC is responsible for formulating and directing implementation of a strategy for effectively stimulating the level of interest and degree of
cooperation among the various constituencies needed to establish the proposed council.
One of the major project milestones was the organization and conduct of a September 8-10 forum to review the
proposed charter, mission statement, and five-year plan. Almost 80 individuals attended. Following background presentations and status reports on current mitigation-related activities, the forum was devoted primarily to presentation and discussion of the preliminary goals and objectives of the proposed council; the proposed
NMMC Charter, home/organization, and membership; proposed activities to be included in the five-year plan
for the NMMC; and the Steering Committee's candidates for the initial NMMC board. In essence, the forum
participants gave consensus approval to the proposed goals, objectives, charter, and membership of the Council
and accepted NIBS as the most likely candidate to serve as the home organization of the NMMC.
At its November 1997 meeting, the NIBS Board of Directors reviewed the goals/objectives and activities
statements and charter for the NMMC as discussed at the forum. They accepted the charter with some
changes. The new council, to be called the Multihazard Mitigation Council (MMC), will now be a sister
council to the BSSC and other NIBS councils.
EMI Multihazard Building Design Summer Institute
In 1994, NIBS, at the request of FEMA's Emergency Management Institute (EMI), entered into a contract for
BSSC to provide support for the of the EMI Multihazard Building Design Summer Institute (MBDSI) for
university and college professors of engineering and architecture. The 1995 MBDSI, conducted in July 1995,
consisted of four one-week courses structured to encourage widespread use of mitigation techniques in
designing/rehabilitating structures to withstand forces generated by both natural and technological hazards by
providing the attending academics with instructional tools for use in creating/updating building design courses.

98

BSSC MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS

International Masonry Institute
Masonry Institute of America
Metal Building Manufacturers Association
National Association of Home Builders
National Concrete Masonry Association
National Conference of States on Building Codes
and Standards
National Council of Structural Engineers
Associations
National Elevator Industry, Inc.
National Fire Sprinkler Association
National Institute of Building Sciences
National Ready Mixed Concrete Association
Permanent Commission for Structural Safety of
Buildings
Portland Cement Association
PrecastlPrestressed Concrete Institute
Rack Manufacturers Institute
Seismic Safety Commission (California)
Southern Building Code Congress International
Southern California Gas Company
Steel Deck Institute, Inc.
Steel Joist Institute
Steven Winter Associates, Inc.
Structural Engineers Association of Arizona
Structural Engineers, Association of California
Structural Engineers Association of Central
California
Structural Engineers Association of Colorado
Structural Engineers Association -ofIllinois
Structural Engineers Association of Northern
California
Structural Engineers Association of Oregon
Structural Engineers Association of San Diego
Structural Engineers Association of Southern
California
Structural Engineers Association of Utah
Structural Engineers Association of Washington
The Masonry Society
U. S. Postal Service'
Western States Clay Products Association
Western States Council Structural Engineers
Association
Westinghouse Electric Corporation'
Wire Reinforcement Institute, Inc.

AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades

Department
AISC Marketing, Inc.
American Concrete Institute
American Consulting Engineers Council
American Forest and Paper Association
American Institute of Architects.
American Institute of Steel Construction
American Insurance Services Group, Inc.
American Iron and Steel Institute
American Plywood Association
American Society of Civil Engineers
American Society of Civil Engineers--Kansas City
Chapter
American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and AirConditioning Engineers
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
American Welding Society
Applied Technology Council
Associated General Contractors of America
Association of Engineering Geologists
Association of Major City Building Officials
Bay Area Structural, Inc.
Brick Institute of America
Building Officials and Code Administrators
International
Building Owners and Managers Association
International
Building Technology, Incorporated'
California Geotechnical Engineers Association
California Division ofthe State Architect Office of
Regulation Services
Canadian National Committee on Earthquake
Engineering
Concrete Masonry Association of California and
Nevada
Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute
Earthquake Engineering Research Institute
General Reinsurance Corporation
Hawaii State Earthquake Advisory Board
Insulating Concrete Form Association
Institute for Business and Home Safety
Interagency Committee on Seismic Safety in
Construction
International Conference of Building Officials

Affiliate (non-voting) members.

(January 1998)

99

BUILDING SEISMIC SAFETY COUNCIL

PUBLICATIONS
Available free from the Federal Emergency Management Agency at 1-800-480-2520
,(orderby FEMA Publication Number)
For detailed information about the BSSC and its projects, contact:
BSSC, 1090 Vermont Avenue, N.W., Suite 700, Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone 202-289-7800; Fax 202-289-1092; e-mail cheider~nibs.org
NEW BUILDINGS PUBLICATIONS
The NEHRP (National EarthquakeHazardsReduction Program) Recommended ProvisionsforSeismic
RegulationsforNew Buildings, 1997 Edition, 2 volumes and maps (JFEMA Publication 302 and
303)-printed copies expected to be available in early 1998.
The NEHAP (NationalEarthquakeHazardsReduction Program) Recommended ProvisionsforSeismic
RegulationsforNew Buildings, 1994 Edition, 2 volumes and maps (FEMA Publications 222A and 223A).
The NEHRP (NationalEarthquakeHazardsReduction Program)Recommended Provisionsforthe Development ofSeismic RegulationsforNew,Buildings, 1991 Edition, 2 volumes and maps (FEMA Publications 222 and 223) - limited to existing supply.
Guide to Application ofthe 1991 Edition of the NEHRPRecommended Provisionsin EarthquakeResistantBuilding Design, Revised Edition, 1995 (FEMA Publication 140)
A NontechnicalExplanation of the NEHRPRecommended Provisions,Revised Edition, 1995 (FEMA
Publication 99)
Seismic ConsiderationsforCommunities at Risk, Revised Edition, 1995 (FEMIA Publication 83)
Seismic Considerations:Apartment Buildings, Revised Edition, 1996 (FEMIA Publication 152)

Seismic Considerations:ElementaryandSecondary Schools, Revised Edition, 1990 (FEMIA Publication

14'9)
Seismic Considerations:Health CareFacilities,Revised Edition, 1l990 (FEMA Publication 150)
Seismic Considerations:Hotels andMotels, Revised Edition, 1990 (FEMA Publication 151)
Seismic Considerations:Office Buildings, Revised Edition, 1996 (FEMA Publication 153)
Societal Implications:Selected Readings, 1985 (FEMA Publications 84)
EXISTING BUILDINGS PUBLICATIONS
NIEHRP Guidelinesfor the Seismic Rehabilitationof Buildings, 1997 (FEMA Publication 273)
NEHRP Guidelinesfor the Seismic Rehabilitationof Buildings: Commentary, 1997 (FEMA Publication
274)
Planning-forSeismic Rehabilitation: SocietalIssues, 1998 (FEMA Publication 275)

101

Example Applications of the NEHRP Guidelinesfor the Seismic Rehabilitation ofBuildings, to be available in mid-1998 (FEMA Publication 276)
NEHRP Handbook of Techniquesfor the Seismic RehabilitationofExisting Buildings, 1992 (FEMA
Publication 172)
NEHRP Handbookfor the Seismic Evaluationof Existing Buildings, 1992 (FEMA Publication 178)
90)
An Action Planfor Reducing Earthquake Hazardsof ExistingBuildings, 1985 (FEMA Publication
MULTIHAZARD PUBLICATIONS
An IntegratedApproach to NaturalHazardRisk Mitigation, 1995 (FEMA Publication 261/2-95)
LIFELINES PUBLICATIONS
Abatement of Seismic Hazardsto Lifelines: An Action Plan, 1987 (FEMA Publication 142)
Abatement of Seismic Hazardsto Lifelines: Proceedingsof a Workshop on Development ofAn Action
Plan, 6 volumes:
Paperson Water and Sewer Lifelines, 1987 (FEMA Publication 135)
Paperscn TransportationLifelines, 1987 (FEMA Publication 136)
Paperson Communication Lifelines, 1987 (FEMA Publication 137)
Paperson PowerLifelines, 1987 (FEMA Publication 138)
Paperson Gas andLiquid FuelLifelines, 1987 (FEMA Publication 139)
Paperson Political,Economic, Social, Legal, andRegulatory Issues and General Workshop Presentations, 1987 (FEMA Publication 143)

102