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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On Nov. 20, when the Portland City Council agreed to pay $350,000 in attorneys’ fees, it marked a final defeat for the city’s approach to regulating older brick buildings.

The order to pay legal fees came after the city lost a federal lawsuit brought by landlords who challenged a city ordinance requiring them to post warning signs on unreinforced masonry buildings, which are considered particularly vulnerable during a sizable earthquake.

The placard ordinance itself was a significant retreat from earlier recommendations. The notification policy was a compromise after the council faced a chorus of protests to requiring seismic retrofits – an expensive process that involves girding masonry buildings with a steel skeleton.

Commercial building owners, along with affordable-housing providers, churches and others, fought back. So the council settled on requiring masonry building owners to post a placard with a simple 19-word message: “This is an unreinforced masonry building. Unreinforced masonry buildings may be unsafe in the event of a major earthquake.”

On May 30, federal district Judge John Acosta struck down the council-approved ordinance, writing that it was unconstitutional because it compelled speech from building owners in violation of the First Amendment.

“The more they tried to make it better, the worse it got,” said John DiLorenzo, a Portland attorney who brought the lawsuit on behalf of the building owners. “It became a shadow of its former self. Even then, what was left couldn’t survive First Amendment scrutiny. It was just a total disaster for the city.”

Acosta wrote that the ordinance was “unduly burdensome” and based on a database riddled with inaccuracies. The database of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings was compiled by city officials and Portland State University engineering students, typically based on a visual inspection of the building exterior and permit records.

In his ruling, Acosta painted a detailed picture of a failure in government regulation. The judge wrote that the city “lacked the political will or public support to achieve its desired goal: mandatory retrofits for URM buildings.”

Now, more than five years after the city began formulating a seismic retrofit policy, city officials are essentially restarting the process from scratch with yet another committee.

The city’s attempts to regulate URM buildings began in 2015, when a committee formed by the Bureau of Emergency Management recommended a mandatory program to strengthen all but the smallest buildings. Scientific advances and national publicity deepened the understanding of the risks posed by a large-scale Cascadia subduction zone quake and lent urgency to regulation. However, city commissioners were unable to agree on a seismic retrofit policy.

Instead, they settled on the placarding requirement – a measure meant to pressure private building owners to pay for the retrofits. The Masonry Building Owners of Oregon responded by launching a lawsuit with DiLorenzo, a Davis Wright Tremaine attorney and lobbyist who often takes on complex business cases.

DiLorenzo found sympathetic plaintiffs. One, John Beardsley, a longtime local real estate developer and investor, owned the Western Rooms building at Southwest Second Avenue and Ankeny Street. The 113-year-old building in 1979 was reinforced via a seismic retrofit. Nevertheless, it did not meet the city’s standards, and the building was placed on the city’s URM database.

Beardsley told the court that the city’s placarding language would make him “a liar.” Acosta’s ruling criticized the city for placing the burden of proving a building did not belong on the URM list on property owners.

Another building owner who testified was Walter McMonies, a retired real estate lawyer who owns several Portland buildings and became president of the Masonry Building Owners. McMonies testified that he spent $1.1 million to upgrade a 36-unit multifamily building in Northwest Portland, but that it still did not meet the city’s standards for seismic reinforcement.

“I’m pushing $2 million to finish it,” McMonies said in an interview. “That’s not a scare story. That’s what it costs.”

In its defense, the city pointed to Berkeley, California, where the number of URM buildings had been cut from 587 in 1991 to six by 2007. Unlike Portland, however, Berkeley made seismic retrofits mandatory and offered a “suite of options for financing retrofits,” Acosta wrote.

Portland’s seismic policies went through a series of committees that included building engineers, owners, city officials and others. Meanwhile, the city’s leadership changed. Steve Novick, who had originally pushed for mandatory seismic retrofits while overseeing the Bureau of Emergency Management, lost his bid for re-election. In ensuing years, the BEM would change hands to commissioners Dan Saltzman, Ted Wheeler and now Jo Ann Hardesty. Hardesty’s office referred questions to the BEM.

DiLorenzo criticized the role of the city’s staff in pushing the seismic retrofits.

“We have a few city employees who have driven this process,” he said. “It is obvious that the City Council was being manipulated by its staff. … I think this is a real failure of governance, and it was eye-opening to me.”

DiLorenzo said the city’s first committee was packed with engineers.

“It would have been a financial bonanza for those guys,” he said.

A report shows the 2015 eight-member Retrofit Standards Committee included five engineers.

BDS spokesman Alex Cousins said there was no undue influence by professional engineers or city staff on seismic retrofit policy. Cousins noted the final policy committee, which made recommendations to city staff, had 18 members – only one of whom was an engineer.

“It is a mischaracterization to say that the committees were stacked with engineers or that the process was predetermined,” Cousins stated in an email. “The fact remains that seismic retrofits make buildings safer in the event of an earthquake, and structural engineers are best able to understand how buildings perform during these events. They needed to be part of the URM policy-making process as did the rest of the stakeholders involved.”

The BEM is now forming a new committee that will look at possible financing for seismic retrofits, including options such as tax breaks and a revolving loan fund. The URM Work Group will meet for the first time on Dec. 17.

“The focus of this will not be a mandatory program,” BEM spokesman Dan Douthit said.

The city has been conscientious in its desire to regulate URM buildings, McMonies said.

“I don’t think anybody’s a bad actor,” he said. “It’s a difficult problem.”

McMonies was skeptical that the committee will come up with a new solution.

“The new committee is fine, although we feel we really looked under every rock,” he said. “There isn’t any spare money in the city’s budget, with the homeless and the housing crises.”

The work group is expected to examine financing options over a year before reporting back to the City Council.

“A lot of specifics aren’t known,” Douthit said.

The post From policy rubble, Portland begins to rebuild appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty has ordered Portland Fire & Rescue to delay enforcing a requirement for unreinforced masonry buildings to display a warning placard.

Hardesty, who oversees the fire bureau, announced the move Thursday.

“No one is interested in putting our residents at risk, but we need to look at ways to better support businesses and nonprofits in seismically upgrading their buildings,” Hardesty said in a prepared statement. “A placard is a Band-Aid for a much larger problem. Until we have better support in place, especially in the form of funding assistance for these projects, I want placarding enforcement on hold for businesses and nonprofit organizations.”

Multifamily property owners and leaders of many of Portland’s historically black churches had criticized the ordinance, saying it does nothing to help them perform seismic retrofits. Such projects can cost millions of dollars for large buildings.

The placarding requirement is scheduled to take effect March 1 for commercial businesses. Nonprofit groups have until November 2020.

Hardesty’s order puts on hold a major policy initiative of Mayor Ted Wheeler. In a prepared statement issued Friday, he noted the requirement remains on the books.

“I stand by City Council’s decision to pass an ordinance requiring the placement of placarding on unreinforced masonry buildings,” Wheeler stated. “We voted to take a small but important step to be transparent about identifying buildings that are at risk in an earthquake. These signs share basic information to the public about the safety of a building.”

Wheeler noted “the requirement to put earthquake warning signs is still the law. I will continue to work with Commissioner Hardesty and building owners to ensure the safety of all Portlanders.”

During a heated battle last year, the City Council struggled to settle on a policy that would encourage building owners to seismically strengthen vulnerable buildings. A city inventory identified 1,631 unreinforced masonry buildings, mostly in close-in historic neighborhoods.

Former Commissioner Dan Saltzman and others had pushed for requiring building owners to perform retrofits.

Multifamily landlords have advocated for financial incentives to conduct retrofits. The placarding policy makes little sense as public policy, said Greg Frick, founder and partner at HFO Investment Real Estate.

“It’s an example of the city rushing in with something that looks good that doesn’t solve the problem,” he said.

Geologists have said Western Oregon is overdue for a potentially devastating Cascadia subduction quake. Worldwide, unreinforced masonry buildings have proved to be dangerous in earthquakes.

The text of the required placards reads: “This is an Unreinforced Masonry Building. Unreinforced Masonry Buildings may be unsafe in an event of a Major Earthquake.”

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The Portland Bureau of Development Services is in the process of writing an ordinance to require signs and tenant notifications for unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings, as directed by a Portland City Council issued in June. The City Council is set to meet at 2 p.m. on Oct. 3, at Portland City Hall, to discuss the draft proposal. This is a new date for .

The wide-ranging URM resolution also directs staff to implement mandatory retrofitting for critical facilities such as schools, government facilities and for-profit assembly spaces like community centers and theaters. Code changes reflecting these directions are expected to be rolled out by June 2019, according to the city.

The resolution also calls for development of more financial incentives for building owners looking to perform retrofits, as well as cost estimates and a strategy to retrofit city-owned URM buildings.

Two new committees will be created to oversee this process. One will be tasked with making recommendations for retrofits to for-profit buildings. The other will create draft recommendations for URMs owned by nonprofits, like churches.

The next step is to assemble the new committees. This will begin in October, with the posting of an application form at .

To be added to a URM information email list, contact: URMS@portlandoregon.gov.

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When the historic United Workmen Temple was demolished last fall, many in Portland were upset by the loss of the 1892 vintage building.

Formerly located at the corner of Southwest 2^nd and Taylor, it is one of two historic unreinforced masonry structures torn down to make way for the ambitious Third and Taylor project, which will see a 20-story hotel and 10-story office tower emerge from the rubble.

The second to fall is the old Lotus Hotel building, home to one of Portland’s most famous nightspots, the Lotus Cardroom and Café, from 1924 until its closure two years ago. The 1906 structure currently is being demolished as general contractor Turner Construction ramps up work on the two new high-rise projects planned for the site.

Check out a photo gallery below of the demolition during its early stages, and don’t forget to check back in a few days for the full story.

The post Photos: Historic Lotus Hotel building comes down appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Owners of unreinforced masonry buildings may be required to place placards on their properties warning tenants and visitors of seismic risk after the Portland City Council on Wednesday directed staff to come up with a notification policy.

The policy will return before the council in three months for a vote. The notification requirement appears to be the most likely seismic measure to be adopted after years of committee meetings yielded little agreement on whether to mandate expensive seismic retrofits of hundreds of aging brick buildings.

The City Council delayed enacting any seismic retrofit mandates for a year, when a newly formed working group will report back to commissioners. Even then, a draft of seismic retrofit requirements would give building owners 20 years to complete the upgrades.

Commissioner Dan Saltzman said the council was giving property owners too much leeway to complete safety improvements.

“The problem with 20 years is 20 years is so far over the horizon that I don’t believe people will take it seriously,” he said.

A city inventory has identified 1,631 unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. Most are commercial structures. Scientists say a major earthquake in Portland is inevitable when a tectonic plate that runs along Oregon’s coastline and is locked against North America slips underneath the continent. Unreinforced masonry buildings are likely to collapse in a significant earthquake.

The notion of requiring seismic retrofits drew fierce opposition from a broad coalition of building owners, historic preservationists, affordable housing advocates and churches. Many argued they simply would not be able to pay for seismic retrofits, which can cost millions of dollars for large buildings. The projects typically involve steel bracing, tying down parapets and tying walls to flooring.

The placard requirement gained unanimous support from commissioners. Mayor Ted Wheeler on Wednesday displayed a draft version of the placard’s text. It read: “This is an unreinforced masonry building. Unreinforced masonry buildings may be unsafe in the event of a major earthquake.”

Renters would also have to be notified if they live in a URM building.

“This is the clearest issue for me,” Commissioner Chloe Eudaly said. “Every tenant and occupant has the right to make an informed decision as to whether they want to live in a URM (building), and denying that information to them is not reasonable.”

Portland resident Kathy Rogers testified against the requirement.

“I think the placarding has potential unintended consequences, primarily for the small businesses,” she said.

Nonprofits pose a particular thorny problem for the city’s URM policy. A 15-year property tax exemption was identified by the city’s URM policy committee as a key method of paying for seismic retrofits. That does nothing to address the needs of churches and other nonprofits, which do not pay property taxes.

Several African-American clergymen pleaded with commissioners Wednesday to not require seismic retrofits without providing funding.

“We fully understand the importance of the lifesaving issues of the earthquake-proofing, but the lack of communication to churches, in particular African-American churches and others, and a lack of steps to ameliorate the special needs of institutions, is very troublesome,” said the Rev. Leroy Haynes Jr., pastor of Allen Temple Church in Northeast Portland.

Commissioners directed staff to add seismic retrofit funding to the city’s lobbying priorities for the 2019 legislative session. But it’s far from clear that more funding for seismic retrofits will be forthcoming from the Legislature.

“We won’t necessarily come up with any more resources,” Saltzman said. “And then what? We’re just going to turn a blind eye to the major seismic threats that face this area?”

Wheeler led the commissioners who sought to push back the requirements for at least another year.

“It is worth the miniscule risk that by delaying this for one year we will actually put people in life-safety danger,” he said. “It is a very small statistical possibility – although it is a real possibility.”

The post Portland seismic retrofit requirements on hold appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

After years of discussion and study, the Portland City Council appears on the verge of again delaying seismic retrofit requirements for owners of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings.

On Wednesday, the City Council will discuss a proposal that would tread lightly on the vast majority of URM building owners. Earlier versions of the policy, prompted by safety concerns that a sizable earthquake could devastate old buildings in the Portland area, generated strong pushback from property owners.

Wednesday’s agenda item directs city staff to develop “implementation steps” for mandatory seismic retrofits and return before the City Council within a year.

If enacted within a year, the draft policy from Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly would give most URM building owners 20 years to complete renovations. It also would not require walls to be tied to floors.

“Mom-and-pop owners have raised legitimate concerns about how the previous ordinance (proposal) may affect their financial stability,” Wheeler stated in a news release. “I take those concerns seriously, and my amended resolution accounts for those concerns while still increasing seismic safety in the (most) vulnerable populations in our community.”

Wheeler’s and Eudaly’s policy would allow owners of class 3 and 4 buildings 20 years to complete seismic upgrades. Class 3 buildings are noncritical buildings with more than 10 occupants, while class 4 buildings are noncritical buildings with zero to 10 occupants. Together, they comprise 94 percent of all URM buildings in Portland.

The exceptions are class 1 and 2 buildings, which include schools, utility buildings and other critical infrastructure. Those two categories encompass only 98 buildings in Portland.

It’s unclear what requirements could be placed on class 1 and 2 buildings. Wheeler’s policy would require city staff to develop code language for a mandatory seismic retrofit program and return to City Council for adoption within a year.

Oregon State University professor Chris Goldfinger will be among those speaking at Wednesday’s council meeting. Goldfinger, a geologist, is a leading expert on the Cascadia subduction zone.

“It’s great that it’s happening, because if we do this, I think we’ll be only the third city in the country to tackle something like this,” he said.

Los Angeles and San Francisco have already tackled seismic retrofit requirements.

It would be “disappointing” if Portland’s seismic retrofit requirements were watered down, Goldfinger said. Governments should mount “as strong a response as possible as soon as possible,” he added.

“It’s a gamble,” he said. “We’re kind of gambling with people’s lives.”

The existence of an earthquake hazard is well established, but the timing is uncertain, Goldfinger said. That makes it a sticky problem for politicians, who have to weigh certain, near-term costs.

“We may not have 20 years,” he said. “No one knows.”

Seismic retrofits can cost millions of dollars. In some cases, the projects simply aren’t financially feasible. The cost to retrofit a building can exceed its existing value, or amount to many times the annual revenue drawn from rents.

Commercial buildings are often given seismic upgrades amid a broader repositioning and later sold. The Towne Storage building, at 17 S.E. Third Ave., underwent a major seismic upgrade in 2016-17 that included installation of concrete shear walls, steel brace frames and new building supports. The building, which dates to 1916, later attracted Autodesk as a tenant and sold last month for $62.75 million, or $630 per square foot – a record for a Portland office property.

The Beaverton School District is planning a seismic upgrade to Aloha High School that includes roof work to the auditoriums and gymnasium. The total project cost for the buildings totaling 260,000 square feet is estimated at $8.2 million, said Aaron Boyle, construction operations supervisor for the school district.

District officials announced last week they had received from Business Oregon a $2.5 million seismic rehabilitation grant that will help pay for the project.

“A lot of the work is in the gymnasium and auditoriums,” Boyle said. “There will be a lot of structural steel in those big-volume spaces.”

The work will go out to bid in the next “couple of months,” he said.

Amid growing concern about seismic hazards, the city of Portland began studying the issues years ago.

Officials held a “kickoff meeting” to study incentives for an unreinforced masonry program on Dec. 10, 2014. In April 2015, the Retrofit Standards Committee issued its report. In December 2015, the city’s Seismic Retrofit Support Committee issued its final report.

Then in October 2017, the city formed a URM policy committee that included developers, building owners, construction executives and others. The group issued its 39-page report in December.

Yet more study is needed, according to Wheeler’s and Eudaly’s proposal.

Wheeler’s resolution calls for formation of a “working group” of URM building owners, tenants and others who will be charged with “further evaluating reasonable seismic retrofit requirements, support, incentives and timelines, for Class 3 and Class 4 URM buildings, and return to Council within a year to report on their findings.”

While the political outcome is uncertain, the geologic hazards are not.

The Cascadia subduction zone has experienced about 46 major earthquakes in the past 10,000 years, according to Goldfinger. Of those, about 20 were 8.8 magnitude or larger, he said.

“The Cascadia fault (line) has gone from completely unknown in 1985 to one of the best-known faults in the world,” he said. “The scientific evidence is about as solid as it could get.”

He added, “We have the hazard part of it pretty well on hand. That turns the camera back to the response side. You know, what are we going to do about it?”

The post City still developing seismic retrofit policy appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Portland City Council in coming weeks will wrestle with a policy that would give owners of seismically at-risk brick buildings a decade or more to complete costly retrofits.

A policy committee in December released a report calling for a tiered approach to seismic retrofit requirements. Building owners would be given ample time – 10 to 15 years – to complete upgrades.

An existing city code to require seismic retrofits in certain circumstances has proved largely ineffective, the committee’s report stated.

Since that code took effect in 1995, 85 percent of unreinforced masonry buildings have received no seismic upgrades, according to the committee’s report. Only about 5 percent were fully retrofitted, and 9 percent were partially upgraded.

About 8 percent of unreinforced masonry buildings from the 1990s inventory were demolished, according to the committee.

The current code requires a seismic retrofit when an unreinforced masonry building changes use, expands to an occupancy of more than 150 people or the building owner spends more than about $43 per square foot on improvements.

The proposed new policy was shaped by an 18-person committee that included architects, developers, building owners, historic preservation advocates and city officials. They issued a 37-page report.

The policy work comes after a widely read 2015 article Kathryn Schulz wrote for The New Yorker detailing devastation to be expected in the event of a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake. The odds of such an earthquake occurring within the next 50 years is about one in three, Schulz reported.

Now the policy matter is before the City Council, which is expected to take it up sometime in the “next few weeks,” said Michael Cox, spokesman for Mayor Ted Wheeler. It was not yet on any upcoming council agenda.

“We want to take a look at those recommendations and work with our council colleagues before we schedule a date,” Cox said.

Wheeler oversees the Office of Emergency Management, which would administer the policy. City commissioners are conferring, Cox said, but added it was too early to publicly discuss details.

“We’re incredibly thankful to the committee for providing … thoughtful input on these policies,” he said. “We like and appreciate the work that they’ve done, and it’s highly valuable.”

The proposed policy would affect a vast swath of Portland’s building inventory. Overall, the city has identified 1,884 unreinforced masonry buildings, with an average age of 88 years.

Unreinforced masonry buildings are common in Portland, particularly in older parts. The city’s list of URM buildings includes more than 7,000 apartment units. Of those, at least 1,800 apartments are publicly financed affordable housing.

Commercial buildings also appear on the list, including some that have had expensive tenant improvements without a seismic retrofit.

The policy committee recommended categorizing buildings:

• Class 1 is “critical buildings and essential facilities.” This includes hospitals, police and fire stations, water treatment plans and electricity-generating facilities. There are six buildings in this category.
• Class 2 facilities include schools, churches and other high-occupancy buildings. There are 92 buildings in this category, including 44 schools and 38 churches.
• Class 3 facilities include buildings with more than 10 occupants, including numerous apartments. This is by far the largest category, comprising 1,332 buildings.
• Class 4 facilities include one- and two-story buildings with zero to 10 occupants. This category has 201 buildings.

Members of the policy committee expressed concern regarding the high cost of seismic retrofits. Those costs can be difficult to recoup because seismically upgraded buildings command little, if any, premium over comparable buildings that have not been retrofitted.

“What concerns me deeply and has from the beginning is we lack the financial tools for building owners to pay for the upgrades,” said Peggy Moretti, executive director of Restore Oregon, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving historic buildings. “That tempered the level of seismic retrofitting that was mandated. It was a compromise based on some concerns about paying for it.”

Moretti suggested the city of Portland should lobby for financial assistance from the state to help building owners pay for seismic upgrades.

“We really need to create a better financial incentive for retrofitting,” she said.

Adding to the cost for multifamily building owners is the city’s relocation ordinance that requires compensating tenants who are evicted without cause. One Portland developer paid nearly $200,000 last year to evict tenants from 65 units at the Fairmount Hotel.

Some building owners are considering seismic upgrades regardless of what the City Council implements. A committee of St. James Lutheran Church, at 1315 S.W. Park Ave., is investigating seismic retrofits for three buildings owned by the church. The St. James Council would first make a recommendation to the congregation for a final decision.

Ralph Oyler, president of the St. James Council, said the church has a “moral obligation” to investigate seismic retrofits in light of the Cascadia fault. The seismic retrofits carry “tremendous potential costs,” but it would be premature to discuss how the church would fund the project, he said.

Don Nielsen, a retired architect who is a member of St. James Lutheran Church, said it makes sense for the church to proceed with engineering and architectural studies for a potential seismic retrofit.

“Generally, the feeling is that is something that should be done,” he said.

The post Revving up to revamp retrofit requirements appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Portland City Council is preparing to consider a policy that would require owners of unreinforced brick buildings to retrofit them, and building owners are urging the city to provide financing.

Portland has 1,644 unreinforced masonry buildings, according to a city inventory. They are 88 years old on average.

Portland officials have anticipated the need to retrofit the city’s unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings for years. The city’s first retrofit requirements were adopted in the mid-1990s. But increasing awareness of Portland’s risk for a potentially devastating Cascadia subduction zone earthquake has added urgency to the efforts.

Even landlords now recognize that seismic retrofit requirements are coming.

“At the end of the day, it’s how can it be done, not should it be done,” said Gwenn Baldwin, a lobbyist who represents the Masonry Building Owners of Oregon.

The URM Policy Committee will meet for the final time on Oct. 4. The City Council will then perform its first review of the policy Oct. 19. The council is not expected to vote on the policy at that meeting.

The policy’s creation is overseen by the city’s Bureau of Emergency Management, which is overseen by Mayor Ted Wheeler. His office is monitoring the URM Policy Committee’s work, spokesman Michael Cox said.

“We’ve been working closely with them on refining their proposal,” he said.

The policy has been years in the making, in part because building upgrade mandates often face resistance from property owners. Seismic retrofits are a particularly costly upgrade, often requiring landlords to evict or temporarily relocate tenants for months while work proceeds.

Adding to the difficulties is the city’s new relocation assistance ordinance that requires landlords to compensate tenants upon issuing a no-cause eviction. The relocation assistance varies by the size of unit, ranging from $2,900 to vacate a studio apartment to $4,500 for a unit with at least three bedrooms.

Those costs add up. Last spring, Urban Development + Partners evicted tenants from 65 units at the Fairmount Hotel to make way for a major renovation. The fees cost the Portland developer $199,800.

In concept, seismic retrofits could hardly be simpler: add steel. Typically, steel bars are added to reinforce masonry walls. Parapets and other features are tied down into more durable structures.

The construction is straightforward, but the costs can be high, particularly for the owners of small buildings that generate modest leasing income.

And not all unreinforced masonry buildings are for-profit operations. The city’s inventory lists approximately 45 schools and 35 churches. Central City Concern, one of the city’s largest nonprofit owners of affordable housing, owns several unreinforced masonry buildings.

URM buildings were built in Portland between about 1870 and 1960, according to the city’s draft summary. Many of the buildings are located downtown, in Old Town Chinatown and in the Central Eastside Industrial District.

Government officials have known of Portland’s seismic risks for years, but a story in the Portland Mercury in 2012 shed light on the scale of the problem. Former Commissioner Steve Novick drew attention to the issue, and then a 2015 article in The New Yorker added alarm with scenarios of widespread death, displacement and structural failures from the inevitable earthquake.

A draft of the city’s policy was released in April, and changes may still be made. The draft policy takes a tiered approach to regulating URM retrofits.

The URM committee process has helped make the draft policy workable for building owners, Baldwin said.

“The process has actually accomplished what you hope from the Portland process,” she said. “It has become more practical, more grounded.”

In the tiered approach, the vast majority of unreinforced masonry buildings is in class 3, designated for buildings with more than 10 occupants but no critical infrastructure. Draft retrofit standards for those buildings call for bracing unreinforced masonry parapets, cornices and chimneys, anchoring walls to floors and roofs, attaching a diaphragm to vertical elements to transfer in plane shear and out-of-plane wall bracing for taller walls.

Owners of class 3 buildings would have five years to assess needed seismic upgrades, 10 years to brace parapets and attach walls to the roof, 20 years to complete wall-to-floor attachments and wall strengthening and 25 years to complete all work. A five-year extension could be provided for hardship.

Class 1 buildings – critical ones such as hospitals and fire stations that must be occupied after an earthquake – have much tighter timelines. Owners of these buildings are given three years to assess and 10 years to complete a retrofit.

Class 2 buildings include schools and churches. Owners of those buildings are given three years for assessment, 10 years for bracing and 20 years to complete a retrofit.

Class 4 buildings are one- to two-story buildings with up to 10 occupants. Owners of those are given 10 years to complete a seismic retrofit.

Affordable housing providers are working to make sure the policy doesn’t result in the closure of any buildings. Central City Concern has been in contact with the Portland Housing Bureau to devise an exception for affordable housing.

The amendment, if adopted by the URM Policy Committee and City Council, would allow an extended timeline for owners of affordable housing to evaluate and conduct retrofits of their buildings, said Sean Hubert, chief housing and employment officer for Central City Concern.

“We feel in terms of the affordable housing piece that that is a good compromise,” he said.

If the amendment is not adopted, Central City Concern would oppose the URM policy, Hubert said.

City codes beginning in the 1970s resulted in the closure of thousands of single-room occupancy units, which share kitchens and bathrooms and serve as housing of last resort for many impoverished individuals, Hubert said. The closure of those units coincided with a rise in homelessness, he said.

“A lot of that loss was due to the city getting more tough on code enforcement and new codes,” he said.

Seismic retrofits for multistory apartment buildings are costlier than similar upgrades for buildings with open floor plans, Hubert said.

“What we have found – in order to do a full seismic retrofit – you have to shore up the diaphragm at each level, which means you have to tear up everything,” he said. “It’s a very costly prospect.”

For many owners of small URM buildings, the property serves as their retirement income, said Susan Steward, executive director of the Building Owners and Managers Association of Oregon. It’s critical the city provide financing for the seismic retrofits, she said.

“I’m still concerned at the end of the day they’re going to pass this with nothing in place (for financial assistance),” she said.

Few buildings have sufficient equity to finance costly retrofits, she said.

A program called PropertyFit aims to close the financial gap. It’s operated by Prosper Portland, Multnomah County and the Energy Trust of Oregon, with outside capital partners. The program offers financing beginning at $200,000 with terms of up to 30 years. The loans are secured by a property lien.

The program has yet to be tested, however.

City officials appear to be sympathetic to building owners’ concerns, Steward said.

“They seem to get it,” she said.

City officials are aware of the financing challenges, but also hesitant to hand out dollars to private property owners. A property-tax abatement may be part of the answer.

The policy is on the right track – as long as financing comes together, Baldwin said.

“We’re close,” she said. “But don’t get things out of order. Don’t pass (the policy) and then figure out financing.”

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Portland’s Unreinforced Masonry (URM) Policy Committee will meet at least once more. Thursday’s public hearing was supposed to be the final one, but a room full of building owners upset with recommended upgrade steps succeeded in delaying a move to City Council.

Owners said the proposal that would mandate upgrades of URM structures is unfair, demanded greater financial incentives and accused the committee’s volunteers of failing to listen.

The plan currently includes the following four steps and coinciding deadlines.

• Step 1 – A full upgrade strategy including detailed cost estimates must be completed within five years. The assessments typically cost between $5,000 and $15,000.
• Step 2 – Parapets, cornices and chimneys must be braced, and the roof must be attached to walls within 10 years.

The upgrades required by Step 2 are already required by current Portland city code; however, a loophole allows owners to perform nearly 50 percent of a re-roof, then wait a period of time before completing the project under a separate building permit.

(Several committee members suggested that closing the loophole would represent a step in the right direction, and suggested, off the record, this loophole is likely why so many building owners support keeping Step 2 in the plan.)

• Step 3 – All floors must be attached to walls and the roof must be sheathed within 15 years.
• Step 4 – A complete retrofit must be performed within 25 years. The cost estimate for such a project is between two and eight times the cost of Step 3.

A majority of the owners who attended the meeting said they support steps 1 and 2, but say steps 3 and 4 put a full upgrade financially out of reach.

“We’re not fat cats; we’re small businessmen,” one said.

Don Nielsen, a representative of St. James Lutheran Church, said the congregation has worked hard to raise $600,000 of the $4 million cost to upgrade its 125-year-old building at Southwest Park Avenue and Jefferson Street. But the construction boom has made the project even more costly for the church, and the looming passage of the city’s URM rules has created even more uncertainty, he said.

The church currently houses the St. James Child Development Center – the largest child care facility in the city, Nielsen said.

“That building will probably have to close at some point, and right now it’s providing a lot of services,” he said.

Lindsay Levy, who co-owns with her husband the building at 909 N. Dekum St., said more focus should go to Portland’s old brick school buildings.

“I don’t feel like any of you have skin in the game,” she said to the committee. “Don’t tell me this is about safety when we have to beg for a bond to fix our schools. The city kicks around the owners. Since you’re holding all of us accountable, I want to hold the city accountable. The kids and the older people should come first.”

One committee member is a representative of URM building owners – attorney Walt McMonies.

“I don’t call them ‘incentives;’ I call them essential financing for this sort of project,” he said.

Committee member Brian Emerick was interrupted as he tried to defend the committee’s work.

“It’s not his money,” an audience member called out, to applause.

The morning after the meeting, Emerick, an architect who works on seismic upgrade projects, said he regretted not doing a better job defending the committee’s progress tailoring the rules to different perspectives.

Among the changes worked out by the subcommittee are simplifying some conditions, revising definitions and removing steps in the process.

Many pointed out that lenders are increasingly wary of URM upgrades.

“Where are the folks in this room going to find the money to finance these upgrades?” Steve Rose said.

Seventy-five year old retiree Michael Emert left copies of his statement next to an official handout packet at the entrance. It details how full upgrades of the two conjoined buildings he purchased in 1993 as a retirement investment would cost between $750,000 and $1 million.

“Right now, it would cost more to retrofit than I can afford to pay in my lifetime,” he said.

Also largely supportive is the Portland City Club. A representative said around 80 percent of its approximately 2,000 members support the plan.

One issue yet to be resolved is whether Multnomah County will adopt provisions of a recently passed state law – Senate Bill 311, which allows local governments to pass property tax exemptions to pay for seismic upgrades of commercial buildings built before 1993. It’s thought the law will cover up to 80 percent of the costs for performing Step 3 upgrades.

Emerick said he wants the final plan to include Step 3 only if Portland and Multnomah County enable SB 311.

The emotionally-charged testimony may have affected committee members. When an audience member suggested that the proposed policy could be potentially more destructive to old buildings in Portland than an actual earthquake, by forcing owners to tear down or sell, Peggy Moretti of Restore Oregon responded, “Saving buildings is our mission … I cannot support a policy that would lead to the destruction of historical buildings. At this moment I am of the position that we cannot mandate something that there are not financial tools for.”

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