Quake Safety May Be Left to the State to Enforce : Ventura: Reinforcement of 138 downtown structures would only be required if they change from one use to another.

In the battle to make downtown Ventura earthquake-proof, city officials are preparing to back down and let the state do the job.

The City Council had been considering for years plans that would have forced landlords to make expensive structural changes in all 138 unreinforced masonry buildings along Main Street and Thompson Boulevard--a move that many building owners opposed.

But the council plans instead to consider an ordinance Monday that would only require downtown landlords to anchor parapets and tile roofs securely and give large windows a shatterproof coating to prevent debris and glass shards from showering pedestrians in an earthquake.

The council will also decide Monday whether to amend the city building code so that owners of unreinforced masonry buildings must strengthen walls and floors only when the use of the building changes from one type of business to another.

The city officials’ stance softened for two reasons:

The state Legislature amended the Uniform Code for Building Conservation in July to enact even stiffer earthquake requirements than the city was contemplating. However, the new rules, which take effect in 1993, require the buildings to be strengthened only if they change from one use to another--just as the proposed city ordinance would.

Downtown landlords convinced city officials that they could suffer almost as much financial damage from the proposed improvements--which could have cost $20 to $30 per square foot--as they would in an earthquake.

“My feeling was, should we kill the downtown right now, or should we wait and let an earthquake do it?” said Councilman John J. McWherter, a member of the council’s Economic Balance Committee, which recommended the measures to the full council.

“From an engineering standpoint, you can’t make (the buildings) earthquake-proof, you can only make them temporarily safe for people to have time to get out of them,” he said.

Councilman Gary B. Tuttle, also a member of the council subcommittee, agreed. The landlords, he said, “should be thrilled that it’s a lot easier than it would have been.”

The landlords are glad the city won’t require them to strengthen all unreinforced masonry buildings, but they are worried the changes in the state building code may force them to do it anyway, said Sandy Smith, president of the Downtown Ventura Assn.

The revised state code requires reinforcements to the walls, floors and roofs of any unreinforced masonry building that is changing from one use to another, such as a restaurant being converted into a store.

It will cost more to refit most buildings than to demolish and replace them, Smith said. And some buildings may be locked into current uses and out of more profitable ones because their owners cannot afford to meet the new code, he said.

“It’s not like an economic catalyst, it’s almost like a tear-down ordinance,” Smith said.

“Downtown is not economically in a position to absorb a lot of requirements. . . . I think we’re going to see things happening slower downtown because of the state ordinance.”

Ventura Community Development Director Everett Millais said it will cost owners of most unreinforced masonry buildings $2,000 to $7,000 to anchor their tile roofs and parapets--the portions of brick walls that protrude above the roof line--and put shatterproof glazing on windows larger than three feet square.

Millais said the city stepped back from plans to require all unreinforced masonry buildings to be earthquake-proof because of the change in the state building code.

But extensive meetings with landlords also showed the officials that they were risking damaging downtown business.

“They were concerned that to enforce a higher level (of earthquake-proofing) would cause either the buildings to be demolished or the loss of business from downtown,” he said.

Restaurant owner Kris Pustina said she is glad downtown won’t have to go through what her restaurant did when her landlord reinforced his brick building.

For 15 weeks last spring and summer, a huge trash bin was parked in front of Franky’s Place, which was covered with scaffolding during the work. Business fell by 30%, she said.

“I’m happy that I won’t be seeing downtown littered with bins and everything else,” Pustina said.

“I feel that the city would really be much further ahead to put major time and effort into a disaster preparedness program to deal with things like the train wreck (at Seacliff), rather than focusing on one particular thing that might not even work--or happen.”