A soft story building is one with soft, weak or open-front walls on one or more side of the first story. These buildings typically have tuck-under parking and storage with one story of apartment units above or they have a wall that has mostly door or window openings with a very low percentage of structural wall framing in between.

This program requires the retrofit of all existing buildings of wood-frame construction, or wood-frame portions thereof, where:

• A permit for Construction of a new building was applied for before January 1, 1978, or if no permit can be located, the structure is determined by the City Building Official to have been built under building code standards enacted prior to January 1, 1978, and
• The ground floor or basement portion of the structure contains parking or other similar open floor space that causes soft, weak, or open-front wall lines, and there exists one or more stories above.

The proposed program does not apply to wood-frame soft-story multifamily buildings that have already been strengthened.

It is an exterior wall line, without vertical elements of the lateral force-resisting system, which requires tributary seismic forces to be resisted by diaphragm rotation or excessive cantilever beyond parallel lines of shear walls. Diaphragms that cantilever more than 25 percent of the distance between the first two adjacent parallel lines of lateral force resisting elements from which the diaphragm cantilevers shall be considered excessive. Cantilevers shall not exceed more than six feet. Exterior exit balconies of 6 feet or less in width shall not be considered excessive cantilevers.

It is a wall line, the lateral stiffness of which is less than what is required by story drift limitations or deformation compatibility requirements of this Article. In lieu of the engineering analysis required by this Article to determine whether a wall line’s lateral stiffness is less than the aforementioned story drift limitations or deformation compatibility requirements, a soft wall line may be defined as a wall line in a story where the wall stiffness is less than seventy percent (70%) of the stiffness of the exterior wall above for the direction under consideration.

It is a wall line at the ground floor where the wall strength is less than 80 percent of the strength of the wall above in the direction under consideration.

It is defined as the portion of a structure between the tops of two successive finished floor surfaces and, for the topmost story, from the top of the floor finish to the top of the roof structural element, but also includes any basement or underfloor space of a building exceeding four feet in height.

Performing a seismic upgrade of a soft story building will reduce the risk of death or injury that may result from the effects of earthquakes. The draft program would create minimum standards intended to mitigate the risk of collapse and improve the performance of these buildings during earthquakes, reducing, but not necessarily preventing, the loss of life, injury and damage to property.

Properties were identified through a field visual survey and permits records research performed to identify existing potentially vulnerable wood-frame soft-story buildings in multi-family residential zones of City of Beverly Hills.

The ordinance is expected to go before the City Council early 2017. Once adopted by the Council, the ordinance takes effect in 30 days.

The following table is indicating the time period for compliance with the retrofit requirements of the proposed program:

The extent of the construction would depend on the overall structure and the engineer report required by the proposed program, but the proposed program would require that only the soft-story condition be corrected.

A property owner may apply to have the property excluded from the inventory list. Examples of acceptable reasons for exclusion are:

• Building does not meet definition of soft story or weak front building as verified by an Engineer licensed in the State of California
• Building has been previously retrofitted

The proposed program would require a registered civil or structural engineer in the State of California, or a qualified architect licensed by the State of California to submit the assessment report or the designed retrofit plans with accompanying calculations.

The City cannot recommend any contractor or engineer. The Blue Book of Building Construction is a regional phone directory that is independent from the City and is published by Contractors Register Inc. The web site is www.thebluebook.com. The Blue Book has a section on Seismic Construction. The Contractors State License Board of California maintains a database of all contractors in the state http://www.cslb.ca.gov. Additionally, if you decide to finance the retrofit costs through the available PACE program administrators such as AllianceNRG, you will be able to select a prequalified contractor from their list.

The Structural Engineers Association of California has a listing of licensed engineers. The web site is http://www.seaoc.org.

Compliance with the proposed program shall not require existing electrical, plumbing, mechanical or fire-safety systems to be altered to comply with existing code unless they constitute a hazard to life or property.   The existing electrical, plumbing, mechanical or fire-safety systems shall comply with the current Building Code if the seismic retrofit interferes or alters any of these systems.

It would be unlawful for any person or business entity, to: (i) fail to comply with any of the time limits set forth in the proposed ordinance, including bringing the affected structure into full compliance with the minimum seismic standards specified in the ordinance; and/or (ii) maintain, use or occupy any such structure that has not been brought into full compliance within the time limits set forth in the proposed ordinance.

The cost will vary widely depending upon the level of the hazard and needed seismic upgrade work. Building owner may consult a licensed civil or structural engineer, or architect, who specializes in seismic strengthening of buildings to develop a retrofitting plan, and multiple bids may be obtained from licensed contractors. The cost for the retrofit of existing wood-frame soft-story buildings is estimated to be between $5,000 to $10,000 per unit.

The cost of a permit is a percentage of construction costs and below is the link to Development Plan Check and Permit Fees schedule: http://www.beverlyhills.org/cbhfiles/storage/files/929698669207314805/DevelopmentFeeSchedule.pdf

There are some available financing assistance options through PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) Programs such as AllianceNRG or Ygrene for property owners wishing to finance the seismic retrofit cost. Use the following link for more information http://cscda.org/Open-PACE.

1. For Chapter 6 tenants, the BHMC allows a greater maximum annual rent increase limit as compared to a Chapter 5 tenant. The maximum permissible rent increase is ten percent (10%), with only one (1) rent increase permissible within any twelve (12) month period according to the provisions of BHMC section 4-6-3.
2. For Chapter 5 tenants, the Code allows a capital expenditure surcharge to be added to the apartment unit rent in accordance to the provisions found in BHMC section 4-5-305.
3. The Beverly Hills Municipal Code (BHMC) rent stabilization provisions currently allows property owners to recover all or a portion of a permanent improvement made to the building.