The city of Portland has decided to dissolve the unreinforced masonry work group that had been tasked with finding ways to protect Portlanders from seismically vulnerable brick buildings.

A resolution to disband the group will be on the City Council‘s agenda on Wednesday.

“The ongoing pandemic emergency, the historic racial justice movement, wildfires, and the ongoing protests have forced us to refocus our resources,” wrote Jonna Papaefthimiou, planning, policy and community programs manager for the Bureau of Emergency Management, in a letter to members of the work group.

Scientists have warned that Portland is at risk of being significantly affected by a sizable earthquake at some point within the next several decades. Unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings have been identified as particularly vulnerable.

Papaefthimiou wrote that earthquakes “continue to pose a significant threat to the safety of Portlanders.”

But she added that city bureaus including Emergency Management and Development Services have neither the funding nor the staff to simultaneously tackle URM-related work and the pandemic.

“Our colleagues at (the Bureau of Development Services) are experiencing transformation of another kind, as they develop new systems to meet the needs of property owners and builders in a virtual format,” Papaefthimiou wrote.

Neither bureau has capacity to lead a URM policy-making effort in the coming year. In the current economic climate, funds for seismic retrofits will likely be scarce for some time.

With no plans to reconvene the work group, the city is essentially ending for the foreseeable future any attempt to improve the safety of URM buildings. The city had restarted its effort last year after losing a federal lawsuit to property owners regarding its placard ordinance. That led to the city paying $350,000 in attorneys’ fees.

The city began examining URM policy in 2015, when a Bureau of Emergency Management committee recommended initiating a mandatory program to reinforce old brick buildings.

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