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For the fourth year in a row, the White House declared May to be Building Safety Month. Building Safety Month highlights the importance of building codes to protect our homes, businesses, and roads against earthquakes, floods, and extreme weather. Seattle’s Building Safety Month proclamation commits to retrofitting Unreinforced Masonry (URM) buildings, such as the vintage red brick buildings in Pioneer Square. Retrofitting URM buildings will help protect the public from earthquakes. Modern building codes ensure new construction accommodates ground movement in an earthquake. URM buildings built before these codes are likely to collapse in an earthquake. These buildings require seismic retrofits to meet a minimum safety standard.
Seattle has approximately 1100 URM buildings. The City is developing legislation to require URM earthquake retrofits. The City understands seismic retrofits are expensive and many building owners may not be able to afford them. For the past few years, the City has worked with engineering and earthquake experts to develop the Alternate Method for the Seismic Improvement of Unreinforced Masonry Buildings, a more cost-effective approach for URM earthquake retrofits. URM buildings that meet criteria for wall and mortar strength, and building layout, can use this less restrictive retrofit method to minimize the cost and the risk of collapse during an earthquake.
SDCI plans to update the Seattle Existing Building Code by the end of 2024 to include the Alternate Method for the Seismic Improvement of URMs. The City will then formally consider URM buildings as retrofitted if they meet the alternate method, or the code-based method associated with a Substantial Alteration. SDCI presented this proposal to the Land Use Committee on May 15. Once the City has developed financial and other support services, URM earthquake retrofits will become mandatory.