Earthquake retrofit in Burbank and the San Fernando Valley

There are two completely different retrofit conversations happening in Burbank and across the San Fernando Valley right now, and homeowners often confuse them. One is about single-family houses on raised foundations. The other is about apartment buildings with parking underneath. The engineering, the cost, and — critically — the legal deadlines are different. Here's how to tell which one you're in.

The Valley's housing stock is exactly the at-risk type

Most of Burbank, North Hollywood, Van Nuys, Sun Valley, and Reseda was built in a postwar rush of one-story ranch homes and small apartment buildings. Two features of that era create earthquake risk. Older houses were often framed on cripple walls — the short wood walls between the foundation and the first floor — and the wood sill was frequently set on the concrete with few or no anchor bolts, or none at all in the oldest homes. In a strong quake, an unbolted house can slide off its foundation, and an unbraced cripple wall can collapse. Small apartment buildings, meanwhile, were often built with the ground floor opened up for carports, which leaves too little wall to resist shaking — the "soft story."

Single-family: brace and bolt

If you own a raised-foundation house with a crawl space, the fix is usually a brace-and-bolt retrofit: install anchor bolts (or foundation plates) to tie the frame to the concrete, and brace the cripple walls with structural plywood and vents. It's not a glamorous project — most of it happens in the crawl space — but it's one of the highest-value dollars you can spend on an older Valley home.

Typical cost is $4,000–$12,000, averaging around $7,000 for a roughly 2,000 sq ft house; simple cripple-wall bracing alone can run $1,000–$3,000. The state's Earthquake Brace + Bolt (EBB) program pays up to $3,000 toward eligible homes — generally built before 1980, on a raised foundation, in a qualifying ZIP code — and income-eligible owners can get an additional grant of up to $7,000, which can cover an entire standard retrofit. Registration windows open periodically, so it's worth checking eligibility before you pay out of pocket. These are typical 2026 Los Angeles market ranges, not a quote.

Homes on a slab-on-grade foundation generally don't need brace-and-bolt — there's no cripple wall to brace. If you're not sure which you have, a contractor can tell in five minutes by looking for a crawl-space vent or access hatch.

Multifamily: Burbank's soft-story ordinance is now mandatory

This is the part with a legal clock. In 2024, Burbank adopted a mandatory soft-story retrofit ordinance, effective January 10, 2025, covering wood-frame buildings of two or more stories, built before January 1, 1978, with an open ground floor (the classic apartments-over-carports layout). The city identified roughly 675 qualifying properties and set a staged compliance schedule:

• Return the screening form and post the Notice of Order — the first deadline (January 2026 for the initial wave).
• Submit retrofit drawings — roughly a year later.
• Pull a permit and begin construction, then complete and finalize on the city's later dates.

Burbank also attached a real carrot: owners who fully comply early were offered a 100% building permit-fee refund for finishing by the first target date and a 50% refund for the second. Because these dates have moved and non-compliance carries penalties, any building owner should confirm their property's exact status and current deadlines with Burbank Building & Safety rather than relying on a summary. Los Angeles runs its own, larger version — Ordinance 183893, covering an estimated 13,500 buildings — and neighboring cities have followed, so a Valley property owner may be under one of several programs depending on the address.

A soft-story retrofit is an engineered job: a licensed structural engineer designs a steel moment frame or cantilever column system for the open ground floor, it goes through plan check, and a contractor installs it. Cost typically runs $10,000–$25,000 per unit, or $60,000–$200,000 per building, depending on size and the engineering required. Los Angeles-area cost-sharing rules generally let owners pass a share of the cost to tenants over time, within limits — another thing to confirm locally.

It does not raise your property taxes

One genuine piece of good news: a seismic retrofit is excluded from property-tax reassessment under California Revenue & Taxation Code §74.5. Bolting a foundation or retrofitting a soft-story building does not increase your assessed value, unlike an addition or an ADU. You do have to notify the county assessor of your intent to claim the exclusion before, or within 30 days of, finishing the work. For how the rest of the reassessment rules work, see our guide to whether a remodel raises your property taxes in California.

When a remodel surfaces the retrofit

Retrofits often come up during another project. Open the foundation for a whole-home renovation or an addition and the crawl space is suddenly accessible — the cheapest time to bolt and brace, because access is already paid for. Older Valley homes hide a lot behind and beneath them; our post on what's behind the walls of a 1950s San Fernando Valley home covers the plumbing, panel, and insulation surprises that tend to travel with a foundation this age. The smart sequence is to have a contractor check the foundation type and bolting before the remodel scope is locked, so the retrofit is a planned line item rather than a mid-project discovery.

What to do next

If you own an older house, find out whether you're on a raised foundation and whether it's bolted, and check EBB eligibility for your ZIP. If you own a pre-1978 apartment building with tuck-under parking in Burbank, don't wait — confirm your compliance status with the city now, because the engineering and plan-check timeline alone can eat many months before construction even starts.

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DN Builders Group Inc is a licensed, bonded general contractor based in Burbank (CA Lic. #1139710), working across the San Fernando Valley. See our whole-home renovation and home additions & ADUs services, or request a walkthrough. Retrofit deadlines and grant programs change — confirm current requirements with Burbank Building & Safety or LADBS. Figures are typical 2026 Los Angeles market ranges, not a quote, and this is general information rather than legal or engineering advice.

Questions

How much does an earthquake retrofit cost for a house in the San Fernando Valley?

For a single-family home on a raised foundation, a standard cripple-wall bracing and foundation-bolting retrofit typically costs $4,000–$12,000, averaging around $7,000 for a roughly 2,000 sq ft house. The state Earthquake Brace + Bolt program offers up to $3,000 toward eligible pre-1980 homes in qualifying ZIP codes, and income-eligible owners can qualify for an additional grant of up to $7,000 — enough to cover a standard retrofit entirely. Slab-on-grade homes generally don't need brace-and-bolt; this applies to raised foundations with a crawl space.

Who has to comply with Burbank's soft-story retrofit ordinance?

Burbank's ordinance applies to wood-frame buildings of two or more stories, built before January 1, 1978, with an open or "soft" ground floor — typically apartments with parking tucked underneath. The city has identified roughly 675 such properties. Owners were required to return a screening form and post a Notice of Order, with later deadlines for submitting retrofit drawings, pulling a permit, and completing construction. Because dates have shifted and penalties apply, confirm your building's current status directly with Burbank Building & Safety.

Does an earthquake retrofit raise my property taxes?

No. California Revenue & Taxation Code §74.5 excludes seismic retrofitting from reassessment, so the money you spend bolting a foundation or bracing a soft-story building does not add to your assessed value. You must notify the county assessor of your intent to claim the exclusion before, or within 30 days of, completing the work.