Seismic retrofitting: soft story multifamily housing.

Existing law establishes the California Earthquake Authority (CEA) , administered under the authority of the Insurance Commissioner and governed by a 3-member board, to transact insurance in this state as necessary to sell policies of basic residential earthquake insurance. Existing law authorizes a city or county to establish, by ordinance, seismic retrofit standards for certain woodframe, multiunit residential buildings, referred to as soft story residential buildings, that the city or county identifies as being potentially hazardous to life in the event of an earthquake. This bill would establish the Seismic Retrofitting Program for Soft Story Multifamily Housing for the purposes of providing financial assistance to owners of soft story multifamily housing for seismic retrofitting to protect individuals living in multifamily housing that have been determined to be at risk of collapse in earthquakes, as specified. The bill would also establish the Seismic Retrofitting Program for Soft Story Multifamily Housing Fund, and its subsidiary account, the Seismic Retrofitting Account, within the State Treasury. Moneys in the fund would be available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to the California Earthquake Authority for the purposes of distributing funds pursuant to the program. The bill would require the Controller, upon appropriation, to transfer $400,000,000 annually to the fund. The bill would require OES and CEA to enter into or use a joint powers agreement to develop and administer the program, as specified. The bill would require OES and CEA to submit a specified report to the Legislature by July 1, 2042, regarding the implementation of the program. The bill would make these provisions inoperative on July 1, 2042, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2043.