Planning, Land Use and Zoning Committee members want to see a bill that addresses seismically retrofitting more than 1,000 unreinforced masonry buildings in Seattle near the top of the list of priorities addressed this year.
Seattle City Councilmember Lisa Herbold told central staff on Wednesday the council has been expecting the city’s next mayor to introduce a bill in 2018 for a phased approach to bringing URM buildings up to a minimum public safety standard.
An updated list of identified URM buildings was generated in December, showing nearly 150 such structures exist in Capitol Hill, 45 in First Hill and 24 in the Central Area/Squire Park neighborhood. This list does not include single-family residences.
Of the more than 1,000 URM buildings in Seattle, 77 are classified as critical vulnerability, 183 at high vulnerability and 902 at medium.
A Technical Advisory Committee was formed in 2008, and a URM Policy Committee was convened in 2012 to explore the issue and come up with recommendations to the city council. The committee was reconvened in 2016, after an inventory of URMs was compiled by senior structural plans engineer Nancy Devine with the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.
Herbold commented during the Jan. 3 committee meeting how the council has been waiting several years for recommendations.
“We have to start at some point, right? And it makes sense to start where the greatest vulnerability is,” she said. “… I’m hoping that this is prioritized highly among these items, because they are life-safety concerns.”
Councilmember Lorena González said she wants addressing URMs to “rise to the top” of priorities for SDCI.
González reminded staff that the council included a Statement of Legislative Intent (SLI) in the city’s 2018 budget to address URM buildings where seismic retrofits are most critically needed, reaching out to the public and mitigating the financial impacts. A full report is due to council on March 31, according to the SLI.
Going into URMs that have not had their floors and roofs structurally connected to walls and retroactively reinforcing them to withstand a seismic event is a costly and often lengthy process. The average cost per square foot has been estimated at $45. The city estimates it could cost up to $1 billion to bring all at-risk structures to the recommended standard.
González said the city should provide financial support to address this public-safety issue, and that staff has done what it needs to in order to assess the situation; it is now time to make difficult decisions.
The city council is providing one-time funding of $100,000 to SDCI this year to contract with community organizations, “such as the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority” to provide services in neighborhoods likely to be affected by new URM legislation.
An SDCI spokesperson tells the Capitol Hill Times that Mayor Jenny Durkan will soon be briefed on the URM Policy Committee’s recommendations.
“Financial incentives remain a key element in creating a successful retrofit policy in Seattle,” according to an email from Wendy Shark with SDCI. “We’ll be briefing the mayor on the URM policy proposal and then continue efforts towards obtaining financial incentives.”
A final recommendation report with a title update that was released in November states the URM Policy Committee supports making seismic retrofits mandatory, but to include an appeals process in that policy. The committee recommends this policy extend to all URMs with three or more units.
Based on vulnerability levels, the committee recommends the time allowance for a building retrofit of 7 to 10 years.
Publicly owned buildings would be able to seek financial support through federal grants, general obligation bonds, a 10 percent federal rehabilitation tax credit, local improvement districts and other grant resources.
Potential sources for private property owners identified by the committee include a revolving loan fund, tax abatement, transfer of development rights and creating local improvement districts.
“The committee noted that improving property owner access to affordable financing opportunities will help the City leverage investment by individual building owners as well as investments made by the City,” the report states. “The committee recommends the City consider how it can use public resources, in the form of grants, bonds, and other revenues, to facilitate private lending and overall funding for retrofits.”
Shark tells CHT that the state capital budget also now includes $200,000 for a statewide inventory of URM buildings, creating “new momentum as the state level.”
URM Policy Committee Recommendations by branax2000 on Scribd