Last month on October 10th, the City of Berkeley co-sponsored with the ASUC (Associated Students of University of California) Office of the External Affairs VP held a public meeting and requested building owners, and all people interested in improving the safety of housing in Berkeley, to come. The meeting was to discuss an ordinance that has been proposed which will require residential buildings with five or more units to be seismically retrofitted if the building is constructed with soft, weak, or open front conditions as these buildings have the potential for sustaining serious damage, including collapse, in the event of earthquakes. Many of these buildings are home to UC Berkeley students.

The ordinance proposed will require owners to meet two deadlines. The first deadline is to plan to retrofit the building complete a building permit application within three years. The second deadline is to complete the building retrofit within five years. The city of Berkeley provided a frequently asked questions link which you can access here.