Seismic retrofitting of  27% of Los Angeles’ 11,400 dangerous wood-frame apartments are up from 5% just 14 months ago. R etrofit progress has been steady across the city, a Times analysis of city records shows. Among the regions with the most “soft-story” buildings, 29% of the apartments on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley are retrofitted, and 26% have been completed in central L.A., which includes Hollywood, Mid-City and Koreatown. The Westside, Valley and central L.A. regions are home to more than 80% of the soft-story buildings in the city.

Only the Eastside lags substantially behind the rest of the city, with 17% of apartment buildings’ retrofit completed. But there are relatively few soft-story apartments there — fewer than 180.

There are still more than 8,000 soft-story apartment buildings that need to be retrofitted across the city

The Times analysis found that some of the best progress for retrofits was in neighborhoods with the most soft-story apartments, also known as dingbats.

The Palms neighborhood on the Westside has more of these vulnerable buildings than any other neighborhood in the city, with almost every single building a dingbat on some blocks. In Palms, there are more than 700 suspected soft-story buildings holding more than 9,000 residential units. About 30% of the buildings have been retrofitted so far.

The completion of more than 3,000 apartment building retrofits in Los Angeles represents a big advance in strengthening dangerous soft-story buildings across California. 

In Los Angeles, the retrofits represent significant progress for a city that only in 2015 passed a sweeping earthquake retrofit law authored by Mayor Eric Garcetti for these vulnerable wood buildings with a flimsy ground floor. Building owners in L.A. have seven years once they’re notified to retrofit.