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42 buildings in Beverly Hills are not seismic adapted

42 buildings in Beverly Hills are not seismic adapted

If you live or work in Beverly Hills and your building was built before 1978, you may need a seismic retrofit.

According to recently obtained data on 229 soft-story buildings in the city, 42 are still not modernized. These buildings are now included in the Times' search list. map monitoring seismic retrofits in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Pasadena and West Hollywood.

Thirteen buildings that have not been rehabilitated are also located in liquefaction zones, areas where the the ground can break during an earthquake.

Beverly Hills spent a modernization program in December 2018 focused on soft-story buildings, typically low-rise apartments that can house dozens of people and have a flimsy first floor for carports. The city's program applies to wood-frame buildings that were built before January 1978 and have parking below the second floor of the building.

In total, about 6,000 buildings potentially need retrofitting in Los Angeles County, according to city records analyzed by The Times. A retrofit strengthens vulnerable buildings to better withstand earthquake shaking, making them less likely to collapse or suffer damage. In December 2023, The Times published its searchable database of nearly 17,000 buildings to help readers determine the status of the buildings in which they live or work.

Over the past six months, The Times has continued this monitoring effort by requesting public records, examining building permits and speaking with engineers and residents of Los Angeles.

The Times received updated data from West Hollywood, Santa Monica and Pasadena and added new data from Beverly Hills. Culver City has provided data to the Times, which will be added to the map at a later date.

Through continued reporting, The Times learned that data provided by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety contained discrepancies compared to its own permitting website. That site contains detailed information about each permit attached to a building, including maintenance, safety complaints and its seismic retrofit history.

After interviews with building owners and residents, The Times discovered that the city's permit database and the Department of Building and Safety's retrofit records did not match due to a technical problem. In response to our inquiries, city building officials are working to update the agency's databases. Once The Times receives the corrected data, we will update our map.

The Times requested progress reports from each city with a seismic retrofit ordinance. Since the first version of our map was published, Pasadena building officials have updated their database, digitizing paper permits and verifying building owner records.

As a result, another 38 buildings were marked as modernized. The total number of modernized soft-story buildings in Pasadena is 98. Another 404 buildings are in the process of modernization.

Most of the buildings in Los Angeles awaiting improvements are condominiums and soft-story apartments. Many of the deadlines for retrofitting larger apartment buildings have already passed, although some have been extended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the South Bay, Torrance officials approved a ordinance in March 2023, but letters have not yet been sent to all building owners. Once officials have identified the buildings, The Times will add these locations to our map.

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