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Ratings Aim to Predict Damage, Downtime From Earthquake

Earthquake.

In California, the word stirs visions of collapsing overpasses and crumbling structures. The U.S. Resiliency Council’s new rating system for buildings aims to replace those visions with a sober, succinct analysis that would give owners and business tenants an idea of potential post-earthquake problems from needed repairs to downtime. The ratings also could identify possible problem areas that could be addressed before disaster strikes.

“There are now ways to understand and better communicate what performance is likely to be in terms of safety, damage costs, repair costs and downtime,” said Evan Reis, senior managing engineer and director of business strategies at Hinman Consulting Engineers in San Francisco. “You can invest in increasing performance by getting a better USRC rating. Business owners and building owners can never have enough information.”

Structural engineers are starting to use a new voluntary rating system that factors in cost, safety and recovery when looking at building performance and earthquake resilience, something current building codes fail to address entirely.

“The viability of your business, if you work in a building, is dependent on how your business performs,” said Reis. He co-founded the U.S. Resiliency Council in 2011 with David Friedman, Ron L. Mayes and Saif Hussain.

Safety, Damage, Recovery

The rating system, which launched in November, assigns one to five stars for three performance measures: safety, damage and recovery.

The Structural Engineers Association of San Diego is a founding member of the organization along with 64 others. Michael Braund, principal and San Diego office director for Degenkolb

Engineers, is one of the few in San Diego qualified to rate buildings. Only 60-70 people have such a designation in the U.S.

“Really, it’s not really an ‘if,’ it’s a ‘when’ scenario for us [in San Diego],” said Braund, the Structural Engineers Association of San Diego vice president. “The owner or some entity may say we want to make sure that this area has more seismic resilience and we need to do these upgrades. Mitigation is not cheap, and by mitigation, I mean seismic retrofits. It does take a bit of effort.”

The USRC hopes there will be a market demand from the public to get behind the rating system, similar to the buy-in for LEED, the leadership in energy and environmental design building certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. However, similarly to LEED ratings, creating or renovating buildings to go beyond code increases the costs of the project and can affect competitiveness across construction firms when bidding for a project. USRC places that cost at one to 10 percent of the construction costs.

Voluntary Participation

The decision to rate a building is voluntary and more likely to appeal to newer buildings that exceed code. Older buildings, like unreinforced masonry buildings most vulnerable to collapse in a natural disaster, might face more peer pressure from lower ratings numbers, and it could negatively affect the building’s market value. Thus, to some extent, there is no incentive for these buildings, beyond public safety, to receive these ratings.

The USRC system was implemented in November by the City of Los Angeles among city-owned buildings as a show of good faith for private businesses.

Braund compared San Diego’s low risk with that of Christchurch, New Zealand, which experienced a devastating earthquake in 2011. Most modern structures performed according to code with only two building collapses. Even so, 70 percent of the buildings in the downtown area were demolished because of the damages. He said San Diego, even at a low risk, should try to act proactively instead of reactively.

S.D.’s Earthquake Outlook

A study from the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute posits that a 6.9 earthquake could hit San Diego along the Rose Canyon fault line, which goes through downtown and up through La Jolla. Anthony Court, a structural engineer fellow for the Structural Engineers Association of California and a member of the local chapter, is working on the project to assess the levels of risk. He said the ratings system could better prepare San Diego for this type of disaster.

“There are a lot of vulnerable buildings downtown and within San Diego inventory,” said Court, principal at A. B. Court & Associates. “It would be good to get those buildings and the private buildings addressed before a major earthquake occurs on the Rose Canyon Fault.”

Structural engineers currently assess financial risks by looking at building codes and “probable maximum loss” reports, a financial report used when buying or leasing a building.

While knowledge is power to some when it comes to earthquake resilience, it can also be a liability to others.

Michael Rosenbaum, the mortgage loan originator and branch manager at American Pacific Mortgage Corporation, said such a system could cause an issue with “warrantability,” or the ability to finance mortgages, sell them on the secondary market or get insured under government programs. That would affect marketability and values.

“For example, we have issues with regards to financing condos with pending construction defect litigation,” Rosenbaum said via email. “There is a 10-year statute of limitations in CA for HOA to sue the developer with claims of construction defect, so newer markets like downtown San Diego are swimming in litigation. Unusual risks like litigation and potentially seismic concerns could absolutely cause concern for insurers, mortgage banks, etc. Bottom line, the mortgage industry is risk adverse.”

Comparatively, Tokyo’s office buildings, on par with USRC five-star ratings, receive 40 percent higher lease rates than buildings that fall into the USRC three-star rating.

For this rating system to be implemented locally, Braund said it will take public awareness and reinforcement. He said the process is not going to be a quick one.

“We are aware of it, we are reviewing it, but have no plans to make a decision on the adoption of this rating system at this time,” said Bob Vacchi, the City of San Diego’s director of development services department in an email from the city’s public information office.

In an executive order Feb. 2, President Barack Obama spoke to the need to establish a federal earthquake risk management standard above code to improve the nation’s resilience to earthquakes in buildings owned, leased, financed or regulated by the federal government.

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