UPDATE: CAPSS - Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety

BOMA San Francisco Members:

Thank you for your continuing interest in San Francisco’s earthquake safety activities. Much has been done and much more will be soon be underway as the Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPSS) team gears up the Earthquake Safety Implementation Program. Recent minor earthquakes on the Hayward Fault have helped keep this important issue on everyone’s mind.  Here are updates on some of the many projects underway:

• A draft 30-year Earthquake Safety Implementation Workplan has been released by Mayor Ed Lee, based on the recommendations of CAPSS, the Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety. To see the first draft of the Earthquake Workplan, click here. For the Mayor’s press release, issued on the 22nd Anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake, please click here. 
• The Earthquake Safety Implementation Workplan proposes many activities to begin in 2012. These activities include the evaluation and upgrade program for Soft-Story buildings with 5+ dwelling units and 3+ stories. San Francisco’s soft-story retrofit program is designed to provide acceptable performance at the lowest cost, limiting work to the ground floor in most cases. The report upon which this program is based, Seismic Retrofit of Weak-Story Multi-Unit Wood-Frame Structures: A Cost Effective Techniques, [Report ATC 71-1, now FEMA P-807] will be issued in final form within the next month. Following that release, we will use this new technique to analyze and retrofit a few demonstration projects to assure that we have addressed all of the critical issues. 
• The Department of Building Inspection’s Code Advisory Committee is completing review of three Administrative Bulletins deailing Post-Earthquake Building Repair and Retrofit that were developed as part of the CAPSS work. The Code Advisory Committee is expected to recommend these Administrative Bulletins to the Building Inspection Commission for adoption in the near future. 
• SPUR, the San Francisco Planning and Research Association, is completing a project proposing Shelter-in-Place standards to increase San Francisco’s earthquake resilience. Shelter-in-Place encourages residents to remain in their homes following earthquakes whenever safe, rather than seek shelter in other locations. This SPUR Shelter-in-Place project dovetails with the work of many City agencies. 
• In Spring 2012 the CAPSS Earthquake Safety Implementation Program will recommence the Earthquake Seminar Series and internship program. Future seminar topics and internship opportunities will be announced soon.

The CAPSS Project was developed to:

• Recommend programs reduce earthquake risk. CAPSS recommends seventeen important actions for the City to take to reduce damage in future earthquakes. These recommendations were developed with the help of a dedicated, volunteer Advisory Committee made up of diverse San Francisco residents.

• Develop improved post-earthquake repair requirements. The City’s current policy covering repair of buildings after earthquakes has problems. CAPSS recommends sensible improvements to this policy, to make rebuilding after the next earthquake smoother.

Project History

The CAPSS project was managed by the Department of Building Inspection and guided by a volunteer Advisory Committee made up of community members.

The Applied Technology Council (ATC) contracted with the Department of Building Inspection to conduct the CAPSS project. ATC is a non-profit organization that develops and promotes state-of-thae-art, user-friendly engineering resources and applications to mitigate the effects of natural and other hazards on the built environment. ATC assembled a team of consultants with diverse specialites to work on the CAPSS project.