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Did you know that roughly one-third of all homes in San Francisco are soft story structures? More importantly, did you know that over half the homes destroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake were soft story structures?
A soft story building is a multi-story building whereby one or more floors have windows, wide doors, large unobstructed commercial spaces, or other openings in places where a shear wall would normally be required for stability as a matter of earthquake engineering design.
For those of the many San  Francisco residents who don’t know what a soft story building is, take a walk in your neighborhood and try to spot a building with apartments sitting on top of a first floor shop and you have likely found a soft story building. A more formal definition: a soft story structure is a woodframe building with no lateral reinforcing. Picture a building with 2-4 stories, windows on multiple floors, and a garage or large retail space on the bottom floor and you will have a good sense of a typical soft story building in San Francisco.
As an imminent city mandate to retrofit soft story buildings lingers in San Francisco, there isn’t a better time to take action. By acting now you can avoid building plan review fees, expedite the building permit process, and exempt yourself from future retrofitting ordinances for the next 15 years. Most importantly, with another catastrophic earthquake in the Bay Area predicted to hit within the next 10 years, you are protecting your building from damages that would far exceed the costs of retrofitting. The immediate savings could range from several hundred to several thousand dollars, while the long term savings could be priceless.
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