Short answer: if you own a wood-frame building of two or more stories with tuck-under parking or another weak first story, built under a code predating January 1, 1978, in the City of Los Angeles, it falls under Ordinance 183893 and must be retrofitted. Santa Monica, Long Beach, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Pasadena run their own mandatory programs with different building categories and deadlines. Non-ductile concrete buildings are a separate, longer-horizon category in LA's ordinance.
The ordinances that govern LA County retrofits
| Jurisdiction | Program | Buildings covered |
|---|---|---|
| City of Los Angeles | Ordinance 183893, as amended by 184081 (LAMC Division 93 and 95) | Wood-frame soft-story buildings, 2+ stories, 2+ dwelling units, permitted before 1978; and non-ductile reinforced concrete buildings on a longer compliance horizon. |
| Santa Monica | Seismic Retrofit Program (Ordinance 2537) | Five categories: soft-story wood frame, non-ductile concrete, unreinforced masonry, steel moment frame, and concrete tilt-up. |
| Long Beach | Municipal Code Chapter 18.35 seismic retrofit | Soft-story wood frame and non-ductile concrete, phased compliance by category. |
| West Hollywood | Soft-story and URM retrofit ordinances | Pre-1978 soft-story multifamily; unreinforced masonry. |
| Beverly Hills | Mandatory retrofit ordinances | Soft-story, non-ductile concrete, steel moment frame. |
| Pasadena | Unreinforced masonry program plus historic review | URM buildings; retrofits to designated or eligible historic structures trigger design review. |
Confirm the current status and deadline for your specific address with the jurisdiction's building and safety department before budgeting — programs have been amended repeatedly and extensions are handled case by case.
How to tell if a building is soft-story
The signature condition is a ground floor that is substantially weaker or more open than the floors above. In practice, in LA that is usually:
- Tuck-under parking below dwelling units, with the open garage side lacking full-height shear walls.
- A ground-floor retail bay with a mostly glass storefront supporting apartments above.
- Large openings, few interior partitions, or a ground floor with a materially different structural system than the levels above.
An engineer's evaluation is what settles it, but a screening walk plus original permit records will tell you quickly whether you are in the program.
What compliance actually requires
- Screening and records. Original construction date from permit records, structural configuration, unit count, and any prior retrofit work.
- Engineering evaluation and design. A licensed structural engineer produces the retrofit design — typically steel moment frames, cantilever columns, or plywood shear walls at the weak line, with new foundations and holdowns.
- Plan check and permit. LADBS requires the retrofit plan set and structural calculations; historic properties in cities like Pasadena add a design review layer.
- Construction and inspection. Special inspection of welding, anchors, and epoxy work is typically required.
- Final sign-off. The certificate of compliance is the document lenders, buyers and insurers ask for.
Cost recovery for multifamily owners
Los Angeles allows owners of rent-stabilized units to recover a defined share of seismic retrofit costs through a capital-improvement style pass-through, subject to caps and RSO procedures. Other cities have their own, narrower rules. Confirm the arithmetic with the housing department before assuming recovery, and keep every invoice and permit — the pass-through is documentation-driven.
Where an inspection fits
USCBI does not perform the structural engineering design. What we do is the part buyers, lenders and owners need first:
- Pre-purchase screening. Is this building in a mandatory program, has an order to comply been issued, and is there a certificate of compliance on file? A missed retrofit obligation is a six-figure surprise on a small multifamily deal.
- Condition documentation. Photographic and narrative documentation of the ground-floor framing, prior retrofit hardware, foundation condition, and water intrusion at the weak line — the conditions that change retrofit cost.
- Retrofit progress and completion inspection. Independent verification for owners and lenders that the work matches the permitted design.
- PCA integration. On a loan, the retrofit obligation belongs in the immediate-repairs table with a real cost, not as a footnote. See what lenders want in a PCA report.
Buying in LA County right now
Before the contingency period closes, pull the address in the jurisdiction's retrofit compliance list, request the permit history, and get the structural configuration documented on site. We cover this on inspections in Downtown Los Angeles, Long Beach and Pasadena, alongside building code consulting.
Need this scoped? USCBI performs commercial inspections across San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Request scope and fee and we normally reply the same business day.