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All posts for the month March, 2010

The Oakland Soft-Story Ordinance Revisited

Last night I had the opportunity to attend the City of Oakland’s first training session for soft-story evaluators. It really helped to clarify the City’s intent in creating two levels of screening. The purpose of the Level 1 Screening form is really to quickly and cost-effectively eliminate buildings from the inventory which are not soft-story. […]

San Francisco Soft-Story Ordinance

On March 16, 2010, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a voluntary soft-story retrofit program, which will take effect on April 19, 2010. This program benefits soft-story building owners who voluntary retrofit their buildings by: Waiving building department plan review fees, which can amount to hundreds or even thousands of dollars per project. Expediting […]

City of Oakland Soft-Story Ordinance

After attending the City of Oakland’s presentation at the RHANAC Expo, as well as a presentation on seismic ordinances at the PCLC Apartment Market Symposium last Wednesday, I felt it would be beneficial to explain the City of Oakland’s Soft-Story Ordinance. The City has just begun sending out the first notifications, so I expect that […]

RHANAC Real Estate Investor’s Expo and Trade Show

I wanted to extend you an invitation to visit the Rental Housing Association of Northern Alameda County Real Estate Investor’s Expo and Trade Show this Saturday, March 13th in Oakland. Enginious Structures will be one of the exhibitors at this event promoting public education regarding soft-story buildings and the benefits of seismic retrofitting. The expo […]

Why Retrofit?

Although current soft-story ordinances do not require a mandatory retrofit of your building, you must retrofit your building to have it removed from the soft-story inventory list.  To encourage owners to complete voluntary retrofits, the City of Alameda will waive all plan review and inspection fees for soft-story retrofit projects if they are submitted within […]