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City staff brief Board on new mandatory soft‑story retrofit ordinance, timeline and financing options
Summary
San Francisco staff outlined the scope and compliance framework of a new mandatory soft‑story retrofit ordinance affecting pre‑1978 multiunit wood‑frame buildings, described tiered compliance deadlines and outreach plans, and summarized financing options including loan programs and transfer‑tax rebates.
Patrick Otellini, director of the City’s Earthquake Safety Implementation Program, briefed the San Francisco Board of Appeals on May 22 about the new mandatory soft‑story retrofit ordinance and the work his office is doing to implement it. The ordinance targets wood‑frame buildings built before 1978 that have five or more residential units and a ‘‘soft‑story’’ condition on the ground floor (large openings such as storefronts or garage bays). Otellini said the mayor signed the legislation April 18 and it ‘‘becomes operative on June 18.”
Otellini told the board the City plans to mail notices to roughly 6,300 property owners starting in mid‑September using a database compiled from assessor records, permit histories and housing inspection files. The screening form accompanying the notice is a simplified document that a licensed architect or structural engineer can complete; buildings that meet the ordinance criteria will be placed into one of four compliance tiers. Tier 1 (buildings housing sensitive occupants such as senior care or educational facilities) will have four years to complete retrofit work; other tiers have longer windows for permitting and construction.
Staff estimated roughly 3,000–3,500 buildings could be identified as soft‑story and subject to retrofit. Otellini said typical retrofit costs range from about $60,000 to $130,000 per structure (the department warned that per‑unit estimates vary with building size and layout). To address affordability and financing, the City said it will pursue multiple approaches: administrative opt‑outs for buildings with prior qualifying work, use of existing voluntary programs, partnerships with the Northern California Community Loan Fund to provide low‑interest loans to nonprofits, engagement with private lenders for conventional financing, a transfer‑tax rebate on recently purchased properties (as allowed under Proposition N), and a voluntary property‑tax‑based district financing option to spread repayment across a defined participant district.
Otellini said the Department of Building Inspection and other agencies are preparing two administrative bulletins to clarify procedural and technical requirements and to streamline permitting, with the goal of reducing the permit burden and enabling many permits to be issued over the counter. He closed by encouraging the Board to consider the ordinance framework when reviewing future appeals related to soft‑story retrofit work.
The presentation was informational; the Board took no formal action on the ordinance at the hearing.
