San Francisco, CA Earthquake Safety: Unreinforced Masonry (2026)

San Francisco passed Ordinance 225-92 on July 13, 1992, mandating the seismic retrofit of all unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings in the city. Approximately 2,100 URM buildings were identified in the initial inventory. The ordinance was one of the most ambitious seismic retrofit programs in the United States. Voters authorized $350 million in bonds to fund low-interest loans to URM building owners, with interest rates as low as 2.5% for buildings maintained as low-income housing. The ordinance adopted the Uniform Code for Building Conservation (UCBC) as the general retrofit standard but allowed a simplified prescriptive approach (known as 'Bolts+') for qualifying buildings. DBI estimates approximately 25% of the city's URMs used the simplified Bolts+ approach. By 2014, over 95% of identified UMB buildings had been retrofit or demolished. San Francisco Building Code Chapters 16B and 16C contain the specific retrofit standards. The Rent Ordinance (Section 37.8B) provides expedited hearing procedures for landlords seeking to pass through seismic retrofit capital improvement costs to tenants, particularly those who financed the work with UMB bond loans.