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A number of Berkeley property owners may be required to retrofit residential buildings that have been deemed seismically unsafe.
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More than seven years ago, Berkeley enacted the Soft Story Ordinance to mitigate the dangers of buildings with structurally unsupportive ground levels. Hundreds of Berkeley properties meet the city’s soft-story definition — a wood-frame structure with five or more units and a ground level containing large openings like storefronts, garages or tuck-under parking.
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In the last few weeks, the ground has trembled beneath the feet of Berkeley community members about 20 times, shaking up not only our nerves but also our assurance that we would be safe should the “Big One” hit. It is our perception that if a catastrophic earthquake were to
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The map below shows an inventory of potentially hazardous soft story buildings in the city of Berkeley as of March 21, 2011. Stephanie Baer is the city news editor.
UC Berkeley senior Claire Bui was eating lunch at her kitchen table last Thursday afternoon when the room began to rattle. “Everything was shaking, and it freaked me out,” Bui said. “I’m from the East Coast, so I’m not used to these types of things. When we signed the lease,
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When Gladys Ray Diggs and her family moved into their Berkeley apartment in 2006, she noticed that her bedroom and her son’s bedroom were located above a parking garage, not thinking that was too unusual for Berkeley apartments. But it is that fact alone that characterizes her apartment as a
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The city’s dilemma of coaxing landlords into retrofitting their earthquake-vulnerable buildings has dragged on too long. According to a 2008 US Geological Survey study, there is a 63 percent chance that in about the next 30 years an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 or greater will shake the Bay Area. According
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More than 14,000 Berkeley residents could be displaced if a major earthquake hits the Hayward fault line, and right now, there is a 62 percent chance there will be an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 or greater by 2032 in the Bay Area, according to the city website. Berkeley residents would
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