‘Soft-story’ buildings in Burlingame draw safety concerns

“I like the gradual approach but, at the end of the day, leading to a mandatory program, looking to start with lots of carrots and moving to sticks,” Councilmember Ricardo Ortiz said.

Soft-story buildings, which were structures built in 1978 or earlier, typically require a combination fix of steel framing and shear walls. These can solidify the building and counteract the dangerous lateral movement of an earthquake, which can cause the top-heavy structure to crumble on top of the ill-supported bottom floor, Community Development Director Kevin Gardiner said.

Burlingame has around 140 potential soft-story residential structures and 15 commercial structures per preliminary data collection, Gardiner said, corresponding to approximately 1,400 housing units. He emphasized that the City Council and staff would need more specific data and financial plans before asking anything of property owners. Many of them are along El Camino Real and near downtown.

Councilmember Michael Brownrigg said that while he was supportive of the gradual approach — which has also been used by Oakland, San Francisco and Fremont — it was important to acknowledge the cost of retrofitting. Using approximated data, $200,000 in redesign for all 1,400 units would cost around $28 million, he noted, although it could cost less by building.

“It’s not a trivial financial equation to solve,” he said. “I definitely think getting a more granular look at cost will help us develop the best financing program.”

The financial element of retrofitting earthquake-unsafe buildings could be combated through a program like transferable zoning rights, Mayor Donna Colson said, in which building owners could be provided with an option to develop new housing units where first-story carports currently exist. Development of first-floor housing would make structures more safe and provide increased ownership value, she said.

“You would create value in the property,” she said. “You could either redevelop at a higher density and that might make financial sense, or you could possibly sell off those development rights.”

Incentivizing owners to create more housing while also making buildings more earthquake-safe was a possibility for which Councilmember Peter Stevenson expressed support.

“I like the idea of tying this into not just the affordable housing portion of our element and what options we have from that, to kind of incent owners to possibly increase density and other factors,” he said. “In certain parts of our community, there is a great deal of concentration of these soft-story structures and they disproportionately represent a fair number of the residents of Burlingame.”

The City Council also discussed the possibility of using housing impact fees to help fund retrofitting if owners agreed to an affordability covenant, in which owners would agree to certain affordability requirements within their housing units.

“I think that could be a legitimate use of housing impact fees particularly given the [Housing, Opportunity, Priorities and Education] committee identified preservation of naturally occurring affordable housing as a priority,” Gardiner said.

Soft-story buildings often provide more affordable housing options than other buildings in the Burlingame area, Gardiner said. Colson encouraged the City Council to be cognizant of this fact, as requiring building development could trigger property owners to raise their rents, which could in turn force lower income tenants out of the area.

Former Mayor Terry Nagel, who is helping spearhead the soft-story buildings project, referenced the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which caused significant damage to housing and life on the Peninsula. Natural disasters like these are what’s motivating her to push for building retrofitting, she said.

“We do think it’s important to start examining the problem, finding out what exactly is involved and exactly how many buildings are impacted and then coming up with a gradual transition into making this a mandatory policy,” she said.

The City Council did not make a motion on the issue at its Jan. 16 meeting, but the ad hoc committee will continue to work on avenues for solutions and report back to the council.