3 rules for unincorporated Oakland County, Michigan.
Verified from official government sources
Oakland County, Michigan does not have a soft-story seismic retrofit ordinance. Michigan is in a low seismic-hazard zone and the Michigan Building Code (based on the 2015 IBC, MCL 125.1501 et seq.) does not require seismic retrofit of existing wood-frame structures with weak first stories (parking, garages, retail). Soft-story retrofit programs exist in high-seismic regions of California (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berkeley) but have no analog in southeast Michigan suburbs such as Royal Oak, Troy, or Farmington Hills.
Oakland County, Michigan does not require seismic foundation anchoring (bolting sill plates to foundations) for existing dwellings. New construction follows the Michigan Residential Code's standard anchor-bolt provisions, which serve wind and uplift loads typical of southeast Michigan rather than seismic shaking. There is no county or municipal retrofit grant or mandate analogous to California's Earthquake Brace + Bolt program.
Oakland County, Michigan has no Unreinforced Masonry (URM) retrofit program. URM ordinances are found in high-seismic jurisdictions (Los Angeles Ordinance 183893, Long Beach, Berkeley, Portland OR), all responding to seismic risk that does not exist in southeast Michigan. Pontiac, Royal Oak, Birmingham, and Detroit-area suburbs with historic brick commercial and residential stock are not subject to any seismic retrofit obligation for masonry buildings.
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