The Technology, Economic Development and Veterans Committee heard a work session on earthquake hazards and the vulnerability of unreinforced masonry buildings, with state and local officials urging faster surveying, an accessible statewide database and a tax-incentive study to help owners pay for retrofits.

Maximilian Dixon, hazards and outreach supervisor for Washington Emergency Management Division, told the committee “we have the 2nd highest earthquake risk in the United States behind California” and that Washington faces multiple fault types, including Cascadia and near-surface crustal faults such as the Seattle and Tacoma faults. “So it is a matter of when, not if,” Dixon said.

The Department of Commerce and Washington Emergency Management Division presented results of an initial inventory that identified close to 4,500 buildings as either suspected or confirmed URMs: 1,176 identified and 3,317 suspected. Alice Zeila, who manages the research and development services unit at the Department of Commerce, described the 2018 proviso-funded inventory and an online dashboard that lets users search by city, county and legislative district and view building details such as year built, ownership and historic status.

Zeila told the committee the inventory excludes single-family homes (per the proviso) and that the preferred method to confirm a URM remains on-site inspection, which is why many entries are currently “suspected.” She said pilot on-site surveys in Port Townsend trained volunteers successfully, but completing statewide verification will require more funding.

Amanda Hertzfeld, City of Seattle unreinforced masonry program manager, described Seattle’s local work: the city has about 1,100 URMs, roughly half providing multifamily housing that supports over 22,000 households. She described a reduced seismic retrofit standard the city adopted in 2024 intended to lower retrofit costs while reducing life-safety risk.

Rod Kaufman, president of the Building Owners and Managers Association of Western Washington, said retrofit costs are a major barrier. Kaufman said current market conditions have lowered commercial property values in many cases, and that for many Class B and C buildings a full retrofit could cost more than the property’s market value. He and Hertzfeld and others urged a menu of financing tools — including tax incentives, FEMA grants, transfer-of-development-rights ideas and private capital partnerships — because no single option will be sufficient.

Presenters and committee members highlighted survey work already completed: more than 130 URMs surveyed in Everett and over 300 in Tacoma, and data showing 219 schools, 395 publicly owned buildings, 170 emergency facilities, 874 vacant or underutilized buildings and 748 listings on the National Register of Historic Places among the identified or suspected URMs.

Committee members asked whether the URM dataset will be layered with seismic hazard maps and soil/ liquefaction information; Dixon and staff said the URM layer is intended to be used together with shake maps and soil data to prioritize mitigation. Officials also said FEMA mitigation grants are difficult to win in practice because of matching requirements (presenters said a 25% match can apply and that state match has in prior years covered half of that in some cases), and that a state matching fund would materially increase jurisdictions’ ability to use federal funds.

Presenters described current funding and next steps: a 2018 Commerce proviso provided roughly $200,000 to begin the inventory; the Emergency Management Division has since obtained FEMA and other grant support to create a data dictionary and user portal so planners and owners can visualize and prioritize URMs. They said further state funding is needed to: (1) complete virtual surveys (using assessor records, Sanborn maps and imagery) to identify candidate URMs statewide; (2) follow up with targeted on-site verifications; and (3) seed retrofit financing, including paying federal grant matches for high-need communities.

The session closed with staff and presenters agreeing to share the draft reports, Seattle’s budget proviso language and grant applications with the committee. Committee chair Cindy Ryu thanked presenters and moved to the next agenda item.