Portland City Council Considers Hardesty Changes To Quake Program

PORTLAND, OR – Portland's city council is considering changes to its earthquake placard program, which was passed by the council last year. It requires the owners of unreinforced masonry buildings in Portland – there are about 1,500 – to post signs warning that they could collapse in an earthquake.

City-owned buildings started posting signs late last year – they had until Jan.1 – while everyone else except nonprofits had until March 1, 2019.

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who was elected last November after the council had adopted the plan, campaigned against it, saying that it would discriminate against churches and community organizations. She introduced the proposed changes being considered by the council.

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The council is expected to vote on them next week. Before the hearing, there was a rally outside City Hall against the current program.

Last month, as the commissioner overseeing the fire bureau, Hardesty instructed them not to begin enforcing the placard law, saying that the city needed to hold more hearings, study the issue further.

The ordinance introduced by Hardesty – the council is scheduled to hold a hearing on Feb. 20 with a vote the week after – would make several changes to the including:

• extend the timeline required for posting a warning sign for all privately-owned buildings to November 1, 2020;
• modify the tenant notification requirement so that landlords are required to notify prospective tenants that a building is URM when they complete a rental application, rather than when they sign the lease;
• set a deadline of June 1, 2019 for landlords to begin notifying prospective tenants;
• modify the required documentation of compliance so that URM building owners do not need to record their agreement with the county Recorder's Office.

Hardesty's proposal comes just after a federal judge dealt the city's plan another blow.

Judge John Acosta issued a temporary restraining order on Thursday, effectively delaying enforcement of the law until at least May 1.

"It's as if the ordinance does not exist for that 60-day period," Acosta said after a hearing with lawyers for the city and lawyers for several building owners who had filed a federal lawsuit.

Acosta scheduled a hearing for April 25.

Before that happens, the city council will consider a resolution from Hardesty that, among other things, would delay enforcement of the law until November 1, 2020.

Hardesty agrees that the city does need to something but says she thinks that there are better ideas out there.

"No one is interested in putting our residents at risk, but we need to look at ways to better support businesses and non-profits in seismically upgrading their buildings," Hardesty says. "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 non-profit organizations."

Portland has more than 1,500 brick buildings that are considered at risk of collapse in a large earthquake.

As a result, the city passed a law requiring those buildings to carry signs saying that, "This is an unreinforced masonry buildings. Unreinforced masonry buildings may be unsafe in the event of a major earthquake."

The signs would have to be at least eight by ten inches and written in a large-sized type.

Officials say that the smarter plan would be to require buildings to be retrofitted but with the cost to many being prohibitive, they see the signs as a good step along the way.

The city maintains an interactive online map that allows you to check if a building is made of unreinforced masonry.

Photo of Hardesty via City of Portland.