On October 9th, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti signed the ‪retrofit ‪ordinances for soft-story apartment buildings and non-ductile concrete buildings. This is the most sweeping mandatory ‪earthquake retrofit ‪‎law in ‪California (and in the United States). It requires as many as 15,000 seismically hazardous buildings be to fixed. The report “Resilience by Design” outlines the program; the document was created by dozens of people from the Mayor’s office staff, USGS staff, Technical Task Force, DWP staff, Telecommunications Task Force, Housing & Community Investment Department, Department of City Planning, and interns, all under the leadership of Cal Tech’s Dr. Lucy Jones. Structural Focus President, David Cocke, S.E., was part of the Technical Task Force providing the technical recommendations for the retrofit ordinances as well as those related to a Back to Business program and to a building Seismic Rating system. Garcetti firmly stated, in regards to Resilience by Design, “it’s designed so that government, property owners, and commercial and residential tenants can come together to strengthen Los Angeles against a known and major threat to life, property, and our economy.”

Read Resilience by Design.

Learn more about SAFEq Institute’s Back to Business Program.