Soft-Story Retrofit Requirements in Riverside and San Bernardino County 2026: What IE Multi-Unit Owners Need to Know
Unlike Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino County cities have not all adopted mandatory soft-story retrofit ordinances — but seismic risk disclosure requirements and voluntary programs affect IE sales.
What This Guide Covers
The term "soft-story" refers to multi-story wood-frame buildings with a large open ground-floor space — typically parking garages or open storefronts — that create a structural weakness during earthquakes. Los Angeles made mandatory soft-story retrofits famous with its 2016 ordinance affecting thousands of buildings, but Riverside and San Bernardino County cities have taken a less aggressive regulatory approach. Here is what IE multi-unit property owners and sellers need to know in 2026.
I work with a number of IE multi-unit property owners who have older apartment buildings in Riverside city, San Bernardino, and other IE communities. The soft-story issue comes up in two contexts: when owners are deciding whether to retrofit proactively, and when buyers encounter older 2-4 story wood-frame apartment stock during due diligence and want to understand the liability and cost picture. This guide covers both scenarios with the specificity IE owners need to make informed decisions.
What Is a Soft-Story Building?
A soft-story building is one where the ground floor has significantly less lateral stiffness and strength than the floors above — typically because the ground floor has large openings for tuck-under parking garages, commercial storefronts, or open parking areas that remove the wall bracing that stiffer upper floors rely on. In a major earthquake, the ground-floor "soft story" absorbs excessive lateral movement, collapses inward, and the upper floors pancake down on top of it. This failure mode is responsible for a disproportionate share of casualties in major California earthquakes.
The 1994 Northridge earthquake (magnitude 6.7, centered in the San Fernando Valley) caused catastrophic soft-story failures in the Northridge Meadows apartment complex and dozens of other buildings, killing 16 people in soft-story collapses alone and injuring hundreds more. The disaster prompted LA to begin studying its soft-story inventory and eventually pass the 2016 mandatory retrofit ordinance. The IE's proximity to major fault systems makes soft-story risk a real — not theoretical — concern for its pre-1980 multi-family housing stock.
The buildings most at risk are 2-4 story wood-frame apartment buildings built between approximately 1950 and 1980, with tuck-under parking on the ground floor. The visual signature is a row of garage doors on the ground floor with apartment units above and no continuous wall framing from foundation to roof. If you own a building that matches this description anywhere in the IE, getting a structural engineering assessment is the first step to understanding your actual exposure.
IE City Soft-Story Ordinances
Unlike Los Angeles, which enacted a comprehensive mandatory soft-story retrofit ordinance in 2016 requiring all identified soft-story buildings to complete retrofits within defined timelines, most Inland Empire cities have not adopted mandatory retrofit programs as of 2026. The current status by major IE city:
Riverside city: Riverside has conducted seismic screening inventories of its older wood-frame multi-family stock and has issued vulnerability notices to building owners in identified categories, but has not enacted a mandatory retrofit ordinance with required timelines. Owners who have received city screening notices should treat those notices as putting them on constructive notice of the vulnerability — which has disclosure implications for sales.
San Bernardino city: San Bernardino has similarly identified vulnerable buildings in its inventory but has not enacted a mandatory retrofit program. San Bernardino's older apartment stock concentrated near the downtown core and near the San Andreas Fault corridor is among the most vulnerable in the IE given both the building age and the fault proximity.
Ontario, Fontana, Rancho Cucamonga, Rialto: None of these cities have comprehensive mandatory soft-story retrofit programs as of 2026. Building owners should check directly with their specific city's building department for current requirements, as the regulatory landscape can change after significant seismic events.
The critical caveat: even without a mandatory ordinance, the absence of a city requirement does not eliminate an owner's liability exposure or the disclosure obligations that arise from known structural vulnerabilities. A change in the regulatory landscape — particularly if the IE experiences a significant earthquake — could accelerate ordinance adoption across multiple IE cities simultaneously, as happened across LA County after Northridge.
IE Seismic Risk Context
The Inland Empire sits in one of California's most seismically active regions, with several major active fault systems running through or adjacent to the region. Understanding the fault geography helps property owners calibrate their risk level:
San Andreas Fault: The San Andreas runs through the Cajon Pass (between San Bernardino and the high desert), passes through the San Bernardino Valley, and continues southeast through the Salton Sea area. Buildings within 1-3 miles of the San Andreas trace face significantly elevated ground shaking risk compared to buildings farther from the fault. The USGS estimates that a major San Andreas rupture in the southern segment — the so-called "Big One" — could cause widespread building damage across San Bernardino County.
San Jacinto Fault Zone: The San Jacinto runs roughly parallel to the San Andreas through the Hemet and San Jacinto areas, continuing northwest through Loma Linda and Colton. The San Jacinto Fault Zone is considered one of the most seismically active fault zones in California, generating numerous smaller earthquakes and carrying significant probability of a major rupture in coming decades. Properties in Hemet, San Jacinto, Loma Linda, and Colton are most directly exposed to this fault.
Elsinore Fault Zone: The Elsinore Fault runs through Wildomar, Lake Elsinore, and the Temecula area in southwestern Riverside County. While less frequently discussed than the San Andreas and San Jacinto, the Elsinore is an active fault with significant historical seismicity.
San Bernardino County in particular has a significant concentration of pre-1980 wood-frame apartment stock in older urban areas — San Bernardino city, Colton, Rialto, Fontana west side — that were built before seismic building codes were substantially upgraded following the 1971 Sylmar earthquake. This stock sits in proximity to the San Andreas and San Jacinto fault systems. Even without a mandatory ordinance, the combination of fault proximity and building age is a material risk factor that affects insurance, lending, and resale values.
Selling a Soft-Story IE Building
California Civil Code requires sellers to disclose known material defects and conditions that affect the value or desirability of a property. Seismic structural vulnerabilities — particularly documented ones — fall squarely in this category. Here is what this means practically for IE multi-unit property sellers:
What must be disclosed: If your building has received a city seismic screening notice, that notice must be disclosed to buyers. If you have commissioned a structural engineering report that identifies soft-story vulnerabilities, that report must be disclosed. If you are aware of visible structural conditions that a reasonable person would recognize as a seismic concern (severe cracks in the foundation or framing, evidence of prior earthquake damage), those conditions must be disclosed. The standard is what you actually knew or should have known — not what you wish you did not know.
The market for soft-story IE buildings: IE investors actively purchase soft-story and seismically vulnerable multi-family buildings at prices that reflect the retrofit cost and risk premium. The market prices these buildings at a discount to non-vulnerable comparables — typically the expected retrofit cost plus a risk premium — and sophisticated investors factor the retrofit into their value-add capital plan. Sellers who try to obscure or minimize seismic vulnerability typically find that it surfaces in the buyer's due diligence anyway, often causing deal collapse or renegotiation at a worse price than an upfront honest disclosure would have achieved. The cleanest approach: full disclosure, accurate retrofit cost estimate, and pricing that reflects the building's as-is condition.
Selling retrofitted buildings: A building that has completed a professionally engineered and permitted soft-story retrofit can be marketed with that as a positive attribute. Documentation package should include the structural engineer's stamped plans, the building permit, and the final inspection sign-off. This documentation gives buyers confidence that the work was done correctly and creates a demonstrable value premium over non-retrofitted comparables.
Retrofit Costs in Riverside and San Bernardino County
Soft-story retrofit costs in the IE depend on the number of units, the severity of the structural deficiency, the quality of existing framing and foundation, and local contractor pricing. Here is a realistic cost framework for 2026:
| Building Size | Retrofit Cost Range | Engineering Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| 4-unit, 2-story | $10,000-$35,000 | $2,000-$3,500 |
| 8-unit, 2-story | $25,000-$60,000 | $2,500-$4,000 |
| 12-unit, 3-story | $45,000-$90,000 | $3,000-$5,000 |
| 16-24 unit, 3-4 story | $75,000-$130,000+ | $4,000-$7,000 |
The engineering assessment is a prerequisite for any retrofit — it defines the scope of work that the contractor bids on. A qualified structural engineer with soft-story experience will inspect the building, review original plans if available, calculate the required strengthening, and produce stamped engineering plans that contractors use for bidding and permitting. Do not skip the engineering phase and try to bid the work without it — cost estimates from contractors who have not reviewed engineering plans are unreliable and the actual work scope often expands once the retrofit begins.
General contractors experienced with soft-story retrofits are available throughout the IE, with concentration in Riverside and San Bernardino cities where the most vulnerable stock is located. The LA-area retrofit program created a significant trained contractor workforce that has extended into IE markets. Get three bids minimum, require each contractor to provide references from completed IE soft-story projects, and verify that the permit was properly pulled and closed on those reference projects.
Does Retrofit Increase IE Property Value?
In most cases, a completed and documented soft-story retrofit adds value to an IE multi-family building, though the magnitude of the premium varies by market conditions and proximity to active fault zones. Here is the analysis:
For buildings in high-risk locations — near the San Andreas or San Jacinto fault traces in San Bernardino or Riverside city — a retrofit removes a significant buyer-perceived liability and financing friction. Lenders who would otherwise decline to make loans on known soft-story buildings become willing to finance retrofitted buildings. This expansion of the buyer pool from cash-only or hard-money financing to conventional and agency financing is itself a substantial value driver, since financed buyers can pay higher prices than all-cash investors constrained by yield requirements.
For buildings where a mandatory ordinance is expected (cities near LA or in actively discussed IE policy environments), proactive retrofit before sale positions the owner ahead of mandatory deadlines. A buyer who has to retrofit the building post-acquisition faces both the retrofit cost and the potential temporary vacancy during construction. A seller who can hand over a retrofitted building eliminates that buyer risk — and buyers pay for that certainty.
The ROI calculation: if a retrofit costs $50,000 and it removes a $75,000 price discount that buyers were requiring for the non-retrofitted condition, the retrofit generates $25,000 in net value plus potentially more favorable financing terms that attract a larger buyer pool. Not every retrofit generates positive ROI — buildings in very low-demand markets or with other major deficiencies may not benefit as much. A conversation with a local multi-family specialist before deciding to retrofit versus selling as-is is worth the time.
Questions? Let's Talk Inland Empire Real Estate.
Call or text (951) 482-7918 for a free consultation with Justin Borges, DRE #01940318.
Common Mistakes IE Multi-Unit Owners Make with Soft-Story Risk
The absence of a mandatory retrofit ordinance in most IE cities does not eliminate seller disclosure obligations, lender concerns, or liability exposure. A seller who receives a city seismic screening notice and then sells the building without disclosing that notice is exposed to post-sale litigation even in a city with no mandatory retrofit requirement. The disclosure obligation arises from knowledge of a material condition, not from the existence of a city ordinance. Many IE owners make this mistake — they know about the vulnerability, see no city requirement to act, and decide the issue does not need to be disclosed. That reasoning is legally wrong.
A soft-story retrofit bid without structural engineering plans is an estimate based on the contractor's visual inspection and experience — useful as a rough range but unreliable as a basis for sale price negotiations or capital planning. The actual retrofit scope is defined by stamped engineering plans that specify exactly what work is required at what locations in the building. Bids based on engineering plans are accurate; bids without them are guesses. The $2,000-$7,000 engineering assessment cost is small relative to the total retrofit budget and to the value of having reliable numbers for decision-making.
Depending on the retrofit scope, work may require temporary access to interior spaces, garage closures, or in some cases temporary unit vacancies. A retrofit on an occupied building requires coordination with tenants, compliance with tenant notice requirements, and potentially temporary relocation assistance if units must be vacated. Factor the tenant coordination logistics into your retrofit timeline and budget. A retrofit that takes 6-10 weeks on an empty building can take significantly longer and cost more on a fully occupied building where work must be sequenced around tenant schedules. Plan for this before you begin.
Buyers and their agents conduct due diligence. A savvy buyer evaluating an older wood-frame IE apartment building will order a structural inspection or specifically ask about seismic vulnerability. If a seller has priced the building at market rate for a non-vulnerable comparable and the buyer's inspection reveals soft-story issues, the deal either collapses or renegotiates downward — usually at a worse outcome than if the seller had priced accurately from the start. Transparent pricing with a clear retrofit cost estimate gives buyers confidence and typically produces faster closings with less renegotiation than pricing that obscures the condition and forces price discovery through the inspection process.
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