Building Codes

The Los Angeles City Council passed a handful of amendments Friday to the city's building code based on lessons learned from the Northridge earthquake. The rules, which apply chiefly to new buildings, include a requirement for steel-bar reinforcements in all foundations, including those of single-family homes. "This is to prevent all the cracking and repairs to foundations in the last earthquake," said Tim McCormick of the city's building and safety department.

The City Council this week took a series of votes to bring local building and fire codes up to state standard. The new codes, which are updated by the state and city every two to three years, call for an upgrade in fire retardant roof tiles on new homes, stricter fire safety requirements in high-rise buildings, and mandatory fire sprinkler systems in new homes with more than 3,600 square feet.

If a massive earthquake decimated Southern California hospitals and health care facilities, we could be relatively certain of one thing: One of the biggest military airlifts in peacetime history would be launched to deliver supplies and emergency personnel. But the reassurance in that thought extends only so far. There is no way to know where the nearest usable airfield would be and no way to gauge how long it would take to get the aid to the victims.

In the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Andrew, two of the nation's most powerful building regulatory groups plan to press the construction industry to adopt more stringent standards for new home construction in the United States. The Southern Building Code Congress, International, which publishes the influential Standard Building Code, is scheduled to vote next month on whether its members should adopt more stringent roof standards submitted by the National Roofing Contractors Assn.

Politics have entangled the adoption of new building and fire codes for California, with Republicans charging Tuesday that two of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis' appointees to the Building Standards Commission are too beholden to labor to vote fairly on the issue. At a Capitol news conference, Assemblyman John Campbell (R-Irvine) called for the removal of Sidney Cavanaugh, a special representative to the United Assn.

The city has been ordered to withdraw its approval of a proposed 100-unit board-and-care complex for the elderly after a judge found that the project violated strict, voter-approved building codes. City officials, notified of the decision in late July, said a decision on whether to appeal depends on the wishes of the developer, the nonprofit Chinese-American Golden Age Assn.

Gov. Pete Wilson pledged Wednesday to re-examine building codes in the wake of a report by the state Seismic Commission that tougher enforcement of the codes would have prevented much of the damage done by the Northridge quake. "That's what we wanted to hear," said commission President Paul Fratessa in an interview. The current building code process, he added, "does not hold someone accountable to the state of California."

With the Northridge earthquake fast receding from memory, the City Council is scheduled today to take up the last in a series of building code changes based on lessons learned from that quake. The proposed building code changes apply to so-called "soft stories" in multistory apartment buildings that engineers say may be prone to collapse in a big earthquake.

When Florida adopted a statewide building code in answer to Hurricane Andrew, it set tough storm construction standards well inland for much of the state -- but not the Panhandle. At the time, homebuilders and legislators argued that the extreme northwestern edge of the state wasn't prone to the assault of high winds and the code could unreasonably increase the cost of homes. Hurricane Ivan, with its 130 mph winds, may have changed some minds.

City Council members ended years of dispute this week by giving a preliminary nod to building and fire code changes that will affect only new homes and structures getting major make-overs. Previous councils had grappled with the question of what homes would be required to have sprinklers, finally applying the requirement to all homes of 2,500 square feet or more.