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San Francisco outlines tall-building earthquake strategy, recommends peer review and recovery task force
Summary
City staff presented a tall-building strategy begun in 2017 that maps downtown high-rises, flags steel moment-frame and other at-risk systems, and includes 16 recommendations such as enhanced peer review, higher design standards and a proposed downtown recovery task force.
San Francisco staff briefed the Disaster Council on a multi-year tall-building strategy aimed at improving earthquake resilience in downtown neighborhoods including SoMa and the Financial District. The initiative, which began in 2017, combined work by the Department of Emergency Management, the Department of Building Inspection and the Public Utilities Commission with external experts from the Applied Technology Council.
Presenters said the team reviewed about 165 records for buildings over 240 feet and used additional thresholds (the Fire Department's 75-foot ladder reach, building occupancy and foundation type) to categorize risk. They identified structural-system differences that matter for seismic performance: older steel moment-frame buildings (highlighted as potentially problematic following 1994 Northridge observations), shear-wall and newer concrete-frame buildings, and a range of foundation types including drill shafts and pile systems.
The presentation summarized 16 recommendations. Short-term items include clearer geotechnical regulation, improved administrative guidance from DBI and strengthened peer-review requirements for complex designs. Staff said they are also considering higher design standards for tall buildings so that structures may be reoccupied more quickly after a seismic event rather than simply ensuring life-safety egress.
Speakers emphasized that resilience depends not just on an individual building's performance but on neighborhood effects: "Your building may do perfectly fine, but if the building across the street from you fails and you have debris around it, your building that may be perfectly functional is not going to be able to be occupied," a presenter said.
The strategy also proposes a downtown recovery framework and a recovery task force modeled on peer-city examples (Seattle, Portland) and FEMA guidance. Staff said they have a contract under negotiation to develop the framework and expect it to involve public, private and nonprofit leadership, and that recovery could span years for activities such as housing reconstruction.
The council did not take formal action on the strategy at the meeting; presenters offered to provide documentation and to meet with council members for follow-up. The item concluded with an invitation for additional technical review and stakeholder engagement to refine implementation steps.
