The map below highlights UC Berkeley buildings that are seismically rated “Poor” or “Very Poor” by the Seismic Action Plan for Facilities Enhancement and Renewal report released in 1997. The green pins mark buildings that were labeled “Poor” while the yellow pins mark buildings labeled “Very Poor” by the report, which was last updated in July 2011.
The SAFER program defines a “Poor” rating as “buildings and other structures expected to sustain significant structural and nonstructural damage and/or result in falling hazards in a major seismic disturbance, representing appreciable life hazards.”
A “Very Poor” rating is defined as “buildings and other structures whose performance during a major seismic disturbance is anticipated to result in extensive structural and nonstructural damage, potential structural collapse, and/or falling hazards that would represent high life hazards.”
The SAFER report first identified 95 buildings marked as “Poor” or “Very Poor,” totaling 27 percent of campus square footage. Since then nearly 75 percent of the needed repairs have been completed, according to Christine Shaff, communications director for Facilities Services.
UC Berkeley has used state funds marked for campus capital improvement only for seismic repairs since 1997. It was originally estimated that it would take 20 years to upgrade all buildings labeled as “Poor” or “Very Poor” but it is likely to take longer because state funds used for this project have been reduced in recent years, according to Shaff.
Comment Policy
Comments should remain on topic, concerning the article or blog post to which they are connected. Brevity is encouraged. Posting under a pseudonym is discouraged, but permitted. The Daily Cal encourages readers to voice their opinions respectfully in regard to the readers, writers and contributors of The Daily Californian. Comments are not pre-moderated, but may be removed if deemed to be in violation of this policy. Click here to read the full comment policy.
Oh! is Ms. Schaff’s claim supposed to get the state to pay more to allow UC to once again retrofit as they have done to so many of buildings in the past?
IA bleeds money from the campus http://budgetcrisis.berkeley.edu/?page_id=16, but the Regents went heavily into debt to build an athletic center that only 1% of the student population will ever use and retrofit a stadium that never should have been built on top of the earthquake fault. Risk of death still remains.
Now tax payers are supposed to pay more? Move Berkeley campus to Merced. No faults. Excellent new buildings. Good place for LBNL too!
Paying more is not a better education at UC Berkeley.
Current pay increases
for generously paid University
of California Faculty is
arrogance. Instate tuition consumes 14% of Ca. Median Family Income!
UC Berkeley (ranked #
70 Forbes) tuition increases exceed the national average rate of increases. Chancellor
Birgeneau has molded Cal.
into the most expensive public university.
University of California President
Yudof and Chancellor
Birgeneau($450,000 salary) have dismissed many much needed cost-cutting
options. They did not consider freezing vacant faculty positions, increasing
class size, requiring faculty to teach more classes, doubling the time between
sabbaticals, cutting and freezing pay and benefits for all chancellors and reforming
the pension system.
They said such faculty
reforms “would not be healthy for University
of California”. Exodus of
faculty and administrators? Who can afford them and where would they go?
We agree it is far
from the ideal situation, but it is in the best interests of the university
system and the state to hold the line on cost increases. UC cannot expect to do
business as usual: raising tuition; granting pay raises and huge bonuses during
a weak economy that has sapped state revenues and individual Californians’
income.
There is no
question the necessary realignments with economic reality are painful. Regent Chairwoman Lansing can bridge the public trust
gap with reassurances that salaries and costs reflect California’s economic reality. The sky above UC will not fall
Opinions? Email the UC Board
of Regents [email protected]