Unreinforced Masonry Buildings - Background

Background

Seattle

• How do I prepare for an earthquake?
• SDCI Emergency Management
• Office of Emergency Management
• Office of Emergency Management (OEM) earthquake info
• Seattle Hazard Explorer 
• Identifying Unreinforced Masonry URM Buildings OEM SDCI

Other Earthquake and URM Information

• U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Pacific Northwest (PNW) earthquake map
• Washington State Department of Commerce URM Survey
• Washington State URM Dashboard (Data Viewer)

Related Information

• Resilient Washington State Workshop Report (2012)
• Daily Journal of Commerce News Article (April 16, 2012)

Seattle Earthquake Hazard Presentations

• Seattle's Earthquake Hazard Presentation
• Seattle Fault Earthquake Scenario
• Technical Considerations
• Seattle's Unreinforced Masonry Buildings

California URM Retrofit Programs

• State of California Government Code
• Summary of URM Retrofit Laws, California Jurisdictions
• Incentives to Encourage Seismic Retrofits: Options for San Francisco
• Bay Area Best Practices in Earthquake Risk Reduction
• Berkeley: Seismic Hazard Mitigation Program for URMs
• Los Angeles Municipal Code Division 88: Earthquake Hazard Reduction in Existing Buildings
• Oakland Municipal Code: Chapter 15.28 URMs
• San Diego Municipal Code: Article 5: Building Regulations
• San Luis Obispo Retrofit Law
• 2007 California Historical Building Code

URM Policy Committee

The URM Policy Committee met to address these issues:

• Threshold for retrofit requirement
• When retrofit would be required
• Timeline for compliance
• Penalty or actions for noncompliance
• Incentive options
• How retrofits can be financed

Technical Committee

The URM Technical Committee made recommendations for:

• The appropriate definition of “unreinforced masonry building”
• Technical aspects of the mandatory retrofit program, including
  • The standard to which URM retrofits must comply
  • The size, location, and type of earthquake to be considered in developing the standard
  • Building elements to be addressed
  • Considerations for previously-retrofitted buildings; how to assess a building retrofitted to an earlier standard

The committee finished their work in 2010 and a final report is available with the proposed retrofit standard.

See our Project Documents page for a complete list of agendas and meeting summaries.