Cities Fail to Prepare Buildings for Quake : Disasters: Only Ventura and Ojai have mandated reinforcement of vulnerable structures. The county is the second most hazardous area in Southern California for a temblor of magnitude 7 or greater.

Despite warnings by scientists 16 months ago that Ventura County may be headed for a major earthquake, a survey shows that the county’s 10 cities have made little or no progress in strengthening their most vulnerable buildings.

Fewer than a dozen of 429 buildings in eight cities rated unsafe by state standards have been reinforced with steel bars, braces and anchors to prevent bricks and mortar from falling in the event of a major earthquake.

Only two cities, Ventura and Ojai, have adopted laws that mandate any building reinforcements.

But Ojai’s ordinance is the only one that would make sure its 11 unreinforced masonry buildings will be made safe for a major earthquake. Ventura’s law requires only minimal changes to its 135 unsafe buildings that experts believe pose a threat to public safety in the event of a significant quake.

With major temblors hitting both Northern and Southern California in the last two weeks, city officials should need no reminder that they need to reinforce old buildings sooner rather than later, said Jack DeJong, a Fillmore building and safety official.

“Look at Watsonville and Santa Cruz,” he said, referring to the magnitude-7.1 quake there in 1989. “Their downtowns were devastated.”

DeJong’s pessimism was underscored in December, 1990, when a Caltech geophysicist revealed satellite data showing two mountain ranges in Ventura County are--in geologic time--converging quickly. The slow-motion collision makes the county the second most hazardous area in Southern California--after regions bordering the San Andreas Fault--for an earthquake of the magnitude of 7 or greater.

DeJong said a quake of that magnitude would reduce unreinforced masonry buildings to rubble, possibly killing or injuring several people in the process. The problem, he said, is that few city leaders are willing to diminish the safety risk by demanding that landlords make their properties earthquake-proof.

“It’s politically sensitive,” said DeJong, who has studied earthquake problems in all of the county’s cities. “The cities don’t want to shove an expensive program on the business community. On the other hand, it’s a safety issue. Where do you strike a balance?”

The state recommends that buildings built before 1933 be made safer by installing steel frames inside structures or steel bars in walls. Other state-recommended reinforcements include anchoring parapets--the decorative part of a wall that extends above the roof line--and tying ceilings and floors to walls.

But it allows cities to formulate their own requirements and decide when they should be enacted. That has resulted in a patchwork of earthquake-upgrade programs in Ventura County, a survey of city building and safety officials shows.

In Fillmore, where 64 buildings are unreinforced, and Oxnard, with 53 hazardous buildings, landlords have simply been notified that their buildings are unsafe and warned that future reinforcements may be required.

At the other end of the spectrum is Ojai’s earthquake upgrade ordinance, passed in 1991, that requires the owners of unreinforced masonry buildings to earthquake-proof them to the state-recommended level by summer, 1994.

Somewhere in between are Ventura’s earthquake requirements, approved in November after a three-year battle with downtown merchants forced the City Council to back down from more expensive structural changes.

Ventura’s ordinance requires downtown landlords to anchor brick parapets and roof tiles to reduce the danger of flying debris. The measure also requires building owners to coat windows larger than three feet square with shatterproof glazing. When a business changes hands, more extensive upgrades could be required, said Everett Millais, Ventura’s community development director.

Millais acknowledges that the city’s earthquake safety rules “are very modest in comparison to other cities.” But he said it is the best plan that the city could come up with in the face of staunch opposition from downtown landlords.

In Santa Paula, where 120 buildings are made of unreinforced masonry, landlords are asked to voluntarily improve their properties. In the past 16 months, three owners have elected to do so, said Steven Stuart, the city’s building and safety director. The program is not progressing quickly, he said, because the city has no money to help fund upgrades by offering redevelopment money or low-interest loans.

“The council’s direction is that until money is available, it will not seek a mandatory ordinance,” Stuart said.

Camarillo has 37 buildings considered hazardous. It has a contract with the county to provide building and safety rules and falls under county guidelines, which specify that renovations be performed in phases, depending on how many people use a building daily.

Moorpark has only seven buildings that are made of unreinforced masonry, Simi Valley has two, and Port Hueneme and Thousand Oaks have none.

Ventura’s struggle to get an ordinance passed points out the basic reason why reinforcing hazardous buildings is often a drawn-out process: Improvements can be costly.

The city originally proposed a more stringent ordinance. But many landlords fiercely opposed the plan, which would have cost $20 to $30 per square foot, saying it would bring economic ruin to downtown quicker than an earthquake would.

Tom Wood, landlord of 10 buildings affected by Ventura’s ordinance, was one of those who opposed any mandatory requirements.

“We’re all doomed anyway if we get a big quake,” Wood said. “It doesn’t matter how much money we put in these buildings. We won’t save lives.”

Nevertheless, Wood said he will comply with the city’s new requirements. He has already reinforced one building, a restaurant at 456 E. Main St., at a cost of $12 per square foot. The work took more than three months to complete and involved bracing the open storefront with steel beams in addition to other changes.

Although Wood and other Ventura property owners may believe that reinforcing their buildings is cost-prohibitive, at least one Santa Paula business has found a way to reduce those costs significantly.

Lee and Judy Clukey own a downtown building built in 1926. The Clukeys hired an earthquake consultant five years ago when they opened a recording products business. The consultant explained to Lee what work and material would be needed to earthquake-proof the building, and Lee performed the work himself.

The cost of renovating his 9,000-square-foot building was less than $2.50 per square foot, he said. “You don’t need highly technical labor (skills) to do it yourself,” Clukey said.

Even if city officials continue to back down from mandating upgrades, the state may do the job for them. The state Legislature amended the Uniform Code for Building Conservation in July to enact stiff earthquake upgrade requirements, similar to those adopted by Ojai. The new rules, however, which take effect in July, 1993, require buildings to be strengthened only if they change from one use to another.

But Fred Turner, an engineer with the state’s Seismic Safety Commission, warned that even these changes may not be enough.

“All this does is set minimum standards,” Turner said. “These standards are so low that these buildings may not be repairable after an earthquake.”

Despite their lack of progress, city officials such as Ventura’s Millais agree that it is better to be prepared if the Big One strikes.

“After the fact,” Millais said, “the only thing that can be done with unreinforced buildings is bulldozing them, which is kind of tragic because many of them have historic significance.”

Ventura County Earthquake Threat

Two mountain ranges in Ventura County are slowly colliding, scientists say. The movement of about half an inch to an inch a year--considered rapid in geologic time--makes a 6-or 7-magnitude earthquake along the Oak Ridge or San Cayetano fault highly probable.