School District Needs $17.3M to Meet State Earthquake Building Standards

Buildings at 11 Redwood City schools could be very dangerous and damaged beyond repair in an earthquake, and it could be years before they are updated, according to the state. Half of them are on soil that could turn to quicksand-like consistency during a major earthquake, according to a 19-month California Watch investigation.

Yet the Redwood City School District cannot even apply for state funding to upgrade the buildings until 2013 at the earliest, while other schools will have to wait as long as 2018, according to district Facilities Director Don Dias.

Every 20 years, schools become eligible once again for modernization funds that the state will match dollar for dollar. The last times the district schools were upgraded were in 1993, 1995 and 1998, Dias said. Those upgrades cost $5 million, $2 million and $20 million, respectively.

All seven schools in the , including and Redwood Shores Elementary, are up to code with California’s earthquake safety law. The state does not keep records of private schools.

California began regulating school architecture for seismic safety in 1933 with the Field Act, but data taken from the Division of the State Architect’s Office shows 20,000 school projects statewide never got final safety certifications. In the crunch to get schools built within the last few decades, state architects have been lax on enforcement, California Watch reported. 

 A separate inventory completed nine years ago found 7,500 seismically risky school buildings in the state. Yet, California Watch reports that only two schools have been able to access a $200 million fund for upgrades. 

Assembly Bill 300 requires public school districts to submit a seismic study that includes schools that do not meet the minimum requirements of the 1976 Uniform Building Code (UBC.) In compliance, the district paid independent consultant Bill Gould and Associates $35,500 to conduct a seismic study in August 2010.

The 11 schools that had potentially seismically dangerous buildings would require a minimum of $17.3 million to bring the buildings up to state standards, the study found.

*A liquefaction zone has soil that begins to act more like a quicksand than solid ground when shaken with enough force. Any development within a liquefaction zone is supposed to be highly regulated under state law. Before a project can be permitted, builders must make sure the soil is safe enough for construction. Since 1998, the Natural Hazards Disclosure Act has required real estate sellers or their agents to inform buyers if a property is within one of these zones.

But school district spokesperson Naomi Hunter said that $17.3 million was a base-line estimate.

“If you upgrade one wall in a building, you’re likely going to have to make improvements to the other walls,” Hunter said. “You wouldn’t remodel just one wall of your kitchen in your home.”

is not on the list of potentially seismically unsafe schools as of the state architect’s 2002 report. Woodside High School, however, had two buildings listed as potentially unsafe and is within one quarter of a mile of a liquefaction zone. The was not able to produce any updated records since the latest 2002 report.

However, while ending up on the AB 300 list of potentially seismically risky schools can indicate dangerous safety issues, it can also signify a simple lapse in certification paperwork, even if safety upgrades have already been made.

“We don’t anticipate any of the schools moving up to a Category 2 or 1, unless the state changes its standards,” Dias said. A Category 1 building indicates an emergency status and all occupants should vacate immediately. “There is no danger for deterioration in the schools.”

And the 11 Redwood City schools are just a few of the nearly 20,000 projects that do not meet the state architect's standards.

In 2006, the state architect found inadequate testing of building materials, an increase in unapproved and unqualified inspection of school sites, and schools that were “completed with other dangerous construction flaws,” according to California Watch’s internal task force reports, e-mails and a confidential state architect survey. 

And unlike the many thousands of schools, Redwood City had a recent seismic study conducted of the district’s schools just seven months ago.

All schools also received funding from the state to perform the necessary upgrades back in 1993, 1995 and 1998. Hunter said a similar method might be employed to generate funding come 2013, however the district is still in preliminary funding discussions and has not determined any concrete funding plans. She mentioned that bonds were one possible option.

The most recent map of AB 300 schools that California Watch has compiled can be viewed here. http://projects.californiawatch.org/earthquakes/school-safety/

This story was produced using data provided to Patch by California Watch, the state's largest investigative reporting team and part of the Center for Investigative Reporting.