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ATC reboots San Francisco seismic action plan; study will recommend voluntary and mandatory policy options
Summary
Applied Technology Council project manager Tom Tobin briefed the commission on a two‑year Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPS) to assess building performance, post‑quake repair standards and implementation options; the study will deliver stakeholder‑informed recommendations and an action plan by April 2010.
The Applied Technology Council (ATC) reintroduced the Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPS) to the Building Inspection Commission on May 21, outlining a two‑year work plan to analyze building performance, post‑quake repair policies and city program options.
Tom Tobin, project manager for ATC, said the project will complete five tasks including project management, revision of an earlier draft report to update valuations and databases, development of repair standards for damaged buildings, recommendations for policies to reduce seismic losses to DBI‑regulated buildings, and a detailed implementation action plan. “The overall project objective is to recommend an action plan to the Department of Building Inspection to improve earthquake resilience in San Francisco,” Tobin said.
Tobin said the team will assemble an engineering panel to resolve technical disputes and that the study will evaluate whether measures should be voluntary, incentive‑based, trigger‑driven or mandatory. He told commissioners the project team expects to finish in two years with an April 2010 target date and that the study will produce both policy options and implementation guidance, including anticipated administrative and staffing needs.
Commissioners asked whether the study could produce earlier recommendations for measures such as soft‑story reinforcement and whether specific property inventories would be compiled. Tobin said the study will develop databases of building types and distributions and provide examples of how recommended policies would apply to representative building types; he said a comprehensive inventory of all buildings and owners was beyond the current contract scope but the department is conducting visual inventories in parallel.
On funding and implementation, Tobin and commissioners discussed federal and local funding options and the city’s Strong Motion Instrumentation Fund; one commissioner estimated roughly $285–$300 million remaining in that special purpose fund. Tobin said the project will provide implementation staffing estimates in the action plan so the city can evaluate capacity needs.
The commission welcomed the CAPS work and asked staff to distribute draft materials and a two‑year schedule to commissioners and to link the project on DBI’s website for public outreach.
