Mandatory Soft Story Retrofit Program

Given Oakland's location along the Hayward Fault, seismic strengthening of buildings—known as seismic retrofitting—can not only save lives, but also housing stock, better enabling Oakland to withstand the short- and long-term effects of a major disaster.

A soft-story building is a structure constructed before 1991 which has a large ground-floor openings (parking garage, store-front windows) with slender columns supporting the upper stories. Soft-story buildings are particularly likely to lean or collapse in an earthquake.

A 2009 ordinance (12966 CMS) mandated that owners of certain residential buildings provide simple and low-cost information to the City about their buildings' ground-floor structural supports (dimensions, materials, photographs, floor plan). The 2009 ordinance did not require any type of structural retrofit.

Effective January 22, 2019, City Council adopted ordinance No. 13516 that requires property owners to seismically strengthen these vulnerable buildings. Property owners of certain residential buildings identified has having a potential "soft-story" will be required to seismically retrofit their buildings.