Soft story building

A soft story building is a multi-story building in which one or more floors have windows, wide doors, large unobstructed commercial spaces, or other openings in places where a shear wall would normally be required for stability as a matter of earthquake engineering design.

[8] After the establishment of the San Francisco Mandatory Seismic Retrofit Program in 2013,[9] Los Angeles adopted a similar ordinance targeting soft-story apartment buildings.

In Los Angeles, property owners have two years from the date of the order to bring forth approved plans.

Total completion, as confirmed by receiving a certificate of compliance, must be attained within seven years of the date of issue of the original order.

[citation needed] Failure to meet the deadlines can result in the municipality stepping in, evicting any lingering tenants, and then demolishing the building, whereupon the cost of demolition is charged back to the property owner.

In Turkey, multi-story residential buildings often have a soft inset ground floor, which is used in high-density areas in Asia to provide extra space for parking or pedestrians.

[14][11] The 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake destroyed many soft-story buildings, which were widespread in the country and greatly increased the amount of damage and number of casualties.