Agency / Organization:
City of Los Angeles, Mayor’s Office

Status:
Complete

Intent:
In 2015 Mayor Eric Garcetti signed into law a historic mandatory retrofit ordinance to ensure that two of Los Angeles' most vulnerable building types, NDC buildings and wood-frame buildings with soft stories, are strengthened to improve their performance during earthquakes, mitigate loss of life and injury, ensure economic resilience and preserve affordable housing should "the Big One" strike Los Angeles.

In the first few years since the adoption of the ordinance, a number of policy, administrative and technical challenges have been identified for buildings that are attempting to comply with the ordinance, and have resulted in unforeseen impacts.

• Increased retrofit costs
• Reduction in housing units
• Increased threat of demolition of existing buildings
• Increased risk to public health and safety if buildings are not strengthened
  
  
  
  Under the auspices of the Mayor’s Office, Omgivning initiated a working group to help improve Los Angeles’ (NDC) Retrofit Program and associated Ordinance. Meeting over a span of two years with stakeholders including property owners, developers, structural engineers, general contractors, city agency representatives and advocacy groups, the goal of the NDC Working Group has been to help analyze the current requirements and processes of the NDC Retrofit Program and Ordinance, provide recommendations for improvement, as well as solutions through new reform ideas.

The working group identified specific suggestions and solutions for policy, administrative and technical reform with the goal of addressing the seismic risk to more buildings in a more streamlined and expedited fashion. While it is anticipated that not all of the suggestions will be implemented, and the timeline of each implementation to be unknown, a goal of the NDC Working Group is to create a framework for continued dialogue with all stakeholders in order to calibrate the recommendations for reform until as many NDC projects have been retrofitted quickly and as safely as possible within the 25 year compliance date.

Omgivning White Paper on Non-Ductile Concrete Buildings from October 2021