ABAG Earthquake Housing Damage and Mitigation Opportunities (including Soft-Story Issues)
Soft-Story aparments and condos are likely to be the source of two-thirds of the Bay Area's uninhabitable housing units after future earthquake.

 
HOW LARGE WILL HOUSING LOSSES BE? NEW INFORMATION ON SOFT-STORY APARTMENTS AND CONDOS IN OAKLAND
ABAG 2003 estimates of uninhabitable housing units and 1999 home retrofit percentages (pdf) 2009 Report: Soft-Story Residential Buildings in Earthquakes - Risk and Public Policy Opportunities for Oakland (pdf) (pages 4-5 are map below)
Location of Past Damage (in the Loma Prieta and Northridge Earthquakes)
Excerpts from Shaken Awake! - 1996 ABAG report on Bay Area quakes and housing - provides model assumptions for 2003 estimates Map: Showing results of Oakland Multifamily Residential Building Inventory (pdf)
Building Damage statistics from past California earthquakes (from ABAG Shaken Awake! report) Link: City of Oakland Ordinance for Mandatory Seismic Screening of Multiple Story BuIldngs Constructed Prior to 1991
Order Shaken Awake! Additional Information: Process background
WHAT CAN RESIDENTS AND OWNERS DO?
SOFT-STORY BUILDINGS AND SAN FRANCISCO
Is your home at risk? Take a QUIZ to determine if your home or apartment will likely be heavily damaged.
Link: Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPSS) Report on Soft-Story Buildings
Home Quake Safety Toolkit: Reduce damage and improve your safety!
Link: SPUR Report on Community Resilience
WHAT CAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS DO?
SOFT-STORY BUILDINGS AND SANTA CLARA COUNTY
Soft-Story Mitigation and Public Policy Opportunities
Link: CDM Report on Number of Potential Soft-Story Buildngs in the County (including San Jose)
Single-Family Home Mitigation and Public Policy Opportunities
ABAG Award Winning Cities - programs mitigating housing problems in future earthquakes
Link: City of San Jose Apartment-Owners Guide to Earthquake Safety
FURTHER INFORMATION FROM 1999 Preventing the Nightmare REPORT
SOFT-STORY BUILDINGS AND BERKELEY
The Solution section from the 1999 ABAG report "Preventing the Nightmare" (pdf) - with ways to encourage seismic retrofitting of housing
Link: City of Berkeley Soft-Story Program - with Ordinance Requiring Mandatory Structural Evaluations of Potential Soft-Story Buildings
Appendix A - Table of Contents from survey of single-family homeowners from "Preventing the Nightmare - Technical Appendices" (pdf)
Link: Report on Status of Compliance with Berkeley Program (coming soon)
Appendix B - Full Document Analysis of Data from Home Inspector Survey on Residential Earthquake Retrofit Rates from "Preventing the Nightmare - Technical Appendices" (pdf)
OTHER SOFT-STORY INFORMATION
Appendix C - Full Document Existing Government Financial Incentive Programs for Earthquake Retrofit from "Preventing the Nightmare - Technical Appendices" (pdf)
City of Fremont Ordinance 10-2007 Requiring Mandatory Retrofit of Apartments (pdf)
Appendix D - Table of Contents from survey of owners of multifamily residential buildings from "Preventing the Nightmare - Technical Appendices" (pdf)
Link: City of Alameda Ordinance Requiring Mandatory Structural Evaluations of Potential Soft-Story Buildings (pdf)
Order "Preventing the Nightmare" Link: AB 304 - Hancock (2005)- Specifically enables cities and counties to address soft-story building hazards in their communities (pdf)
 


ABAG, the Association of Bay Area Governments, is the regional planning and services agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. The writing and production of the "Mitigation and Public Policy" reports for the Bay Area, as well as the specific report and map for the City of Oakland, were financed by grants from FEMA through CalEMA, as well as by the Association of Bay Area Governments. The writing and production of the "Preventing the Nightmare" reports were financed by Grant No. CMS-9705644 from the National Science Foundation (NSF), as well as by the Association of Bay Area Governments. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies.

This page was last updated 8/10/09 by jbp.