The City of Los Angeles has unanimously voted to pass the Seismic RetrofitOrdinance, which mandates structural strengthening of vulnerablebuildings in an effort to protect the city against major losses incase of the next major earthquake. The LA ordinance, which isexpected to go into effect in the first half of 2016, will requirethe seismic retrofitting of the city's mostvulnerable building types:

1. Wood framed multi-familybuildings that contain large areas of tuck under parking with astability weakness at the ground floor level –commonly known asa “soft-story” or “weak story”condition. Affected buildings arethose with four or more units constructed under original buildingpermit applications prior to January 1, 1978 that contain anidentified “soft-wall line”.
2. Non-ductile concrete buildingsconstructed under original building permit applications prior toJanuary 13^th 1977. The LA ordinance is they country'sfirst to mandate compulsory retrofits of concretebuildings.

The LA seismic retrofit ordinanceforms part of the City's “Resilience By Design” plan, which is one of the country's mostambitious plans to improve earthquake resilience, and also includesmeasures to secure water supply and communicationsinfrastructure.

In many ways LA's ordinance mirrors the mandatory soft-story retrofit ordinance of SanFrancisco that went into effect in 2013 but LA's law ismagnified in both scale and scope – and will have a significantimpact on the City's property owners, investors, brokers andlenders. Let me address a few questions I've received inrecent days.

How do I determine if a building is affected by theordinance?
The city has pre-identified approximately13,000 buildings and has created an inventory of addresses based onresearch conducted via online tools, city records, and in sitevisits performed by city officials. The city will providenotification and guidance to owners about when this becomesactive.