Seismic Safety Panel Weighs Reform in Era of Cutbacks

Blaming shoddy design, construction and inspection for much of the damage in the Northridge earthquake, the California Seismic Safety Commission has called for new laws requiring additional training for architects, engineers, contractors and code-enforcement officials.

The commission, meeting this week, tentatively agreed on the educational requirements and several other recommendations. But it postponed final action on an already overdue report Gov. Pete Wilson requested on the adequacy of current seismic construction standards.

The commission stressed the need to retrofit schools and other public buildings to reduce hazards from non-structural elements such as toppling lighting fixtures. But commissioners wrestled with how to safeguard lives and property in the face of the state’s dire fiscal constraints.

“The voters are not interested in big-ticket items,” said Frances E. Winslow, a commissioner and director of emergency services for the city of San Jose. “We have to ask ourselves what we can do administratively or without involving a lot of expenditures.”

After three hours of debate Thursday, the commission shot down a potentially costly proposal to establish a new state agency or designate a “quake czar” who would have been responsible for managing seismic risk-reduction programs now divided between several agencies. The new department would also have been responsible for promulgating seismic-safety training and building standards.

Developers and local building officials contended that the agency would have been a waste of money.

“The voters made a statement about how they felt about big government Tuesday,” testified Robert E. Raymer, technical director of the California Building Industry Assn. “This item alone could hurt the credibility of your entire document.”

Some commissioners argued that the new department could wind up saving the state money by consolidating fragmented programs. But others warned that even if it were cost-effective, it would be solidly opposed by the turf-hungry state agencies that currently regulate seismic safety, including the Division of the State Architect and the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. Legislation to consolidate the various programs has failed to win passage in the past, partly because the agencies opposed it.

The commission lacks the authority to enforce new rules it recommends but is often considered persuasive on issues of seismic safety. It will meet again on Dec. 8, and the final report is not likely to be completed until shortly before the first anniversary of the Jan. 17 earthquake.

The commission has tentatively concluded that the building code is largely adequate to protect lives but found compliance lacking. Many of the 11,787 buildings that were heavily damaged in the Northridge earthquake showed evidence of shoddy construction, design or inspection, said Fred Turner, the commission’s structural engineer.

“We would not have had a lot of the damage we had . . . if we had just taken what we had today and used it properly,” said Paul F. Fratessa, chairman of the Seismic Safety Commission.

The commission has recommended that building departments hire architects or engineers to review sophisticated blueprints, that code-enforcement officials and others receive additional training and that updated seismic-safety principles be included in contractors’ licensing exams.

The commission also tentatively agreed to adopt a recommendation that would require the owners of the state’s 1,300 dams and large river levees to update their inundation maps by Jan. 1, 1996. The dams appear to be structurally sound, the commission said, but local jurisdictions need the maps to evaluate future development and prepare evacuation strategies in the event of a cataclysmic earthquake.

The commission also plans to ask the Legislature to allocate state and federal money for a seismic-hazards mapping program that could also help cities plan development.

A draft report urged that automatic shut-off valves be required at the service entry point of all mobile-home parks in California. Gas-fed fires from snapped lines destroyed 184 mobile homes after the Northridge earthquake struck, according to the commission. Some Los Angeles City Council members have proposed that the valves be required in all residences.

A spokeswoman for Southern California Gas Co., which has 4.7 million customers in the Southland, said the firm opposes any mandates because the valves often shut down unnecessarily, leaving consumers without service and forcing the firm to make costly home visits to turn the gas back on. The company is seeking permission from the Public Utilities Commission to test a shut-off valve in the San Fernando Valley, Orange County and the Inland Empire that can be turned back on by the customer, the spokeswoman said.

The commission completed its business this week without acting on one potentially costly recommendation: that local governments identify and draw up plans to retrofit structures that are vulnerable to failure in an earthquake.

Potentially vulnerable buildings identified by the commission include those made of unreinforced brick, non-ductile reinforced concrete like the collapsed Bullock’s department store in Northridge, concrete tilt-up construction like some grocery stores and warehouses, and certain wood-frame buildings like the Northridge Meadows Apartments complex, where 16 tenants perished.

But the state has no money to pay for the process of identifying vulnerable buildings. Under a recent law, the Legislature is required to underwrite the cost of any new mandates it imposes on local governments. The city of Los Angeles is already considering a retrofit program.

To help building owners pay for retrofits, the commission tentatively agreed to propose legislation to allow the creation of redevelopment districts that could divert local property-tax revenue to areas deemed vulnerable to earthquakes. But in Sherman Oaks, opponents of a proposal to use redevelopment agency powers to rebuild quake-damaged neighborhoods said they would fight any attempt to expand the redevelopment domain.

“No one trusts community redevelopment agencies because they dictate what can be built . . . and they don’t care what the residents think,” said Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., in a telephone interview.

The commission continued to debate whether the building code should go further than the “life-safety” standard--which requires that structures be strong enough not to collapse and cause a fatality--and be appended to protect buildings as well as lives. For instance, a companion code could be developed that would offer building owners the option of designing a structure that would survive a quake with minimal damage or one that functions so well that activities are barely interrupted.

Under the proposal, insurance companies would be urged to offer incentives such as reduced rates to building owners who opt for the higher standards.

Earthquake Safety: A complete guide to earthquake preparedness by the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is available on the TimesLink on-line service. Sign on and “jump” to keyword “earthquakes.”

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