Seismic Compliance and Safety

Program Overview

Senate Bill 1953 (SB 1953) was introduced on February 25, 1994. It was signed into law on September 21, 1994 and filed by the Secretary of State on September 22, 1994. The bill was an amendment to and furtherance of the Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Seismic Safety Act of 1983 (Alquist Act). SB 1953 (Chapter 740, 1994), is now chaptered into statute in Sections 130000 through 130070 of the Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Facilities Seismic Safety Act, and part of the California Health and Safety Code. The regulations developed as a result of this statute are deemed to be emergency regulations and became effective upon approval by the California Building Standards Commission and filing with the Secretary of State on March 18, 1998. See an overview of the SB1953 Program.

The HCAI Office of Statewide Hospital Planning and Development (OSHPD) formed the Seismic Compliance Unit (SCU) after the passage of Senate Bill 1953 (SB 1953). This Unit is comprised of structural engineers and senior architects responsible for review and approval of the following submittals to OSHPD:

Seismic Evaluation Reports (structural and non-structural)
Seismic Performance Ratings (SPC/NPC) [Click Here to download data set from CHHS OpenData Portal]
(See definitions)
Compliance Plans
List of Approved Extension requests [Click here to download data set from CHHS OpenData Portal]
Design criteria and approvals of voluntary seismic compliance projects
SPC-4D Regulations

How to Apply for a Seismic Compliance Unit (SCU) Project

Do not create a project in eSP. Please click on the button below to read about the application process.

SCU Application Process

Structural Performance Category (SPC) Ratings

All general acute care hospital buildings are assigned a structural performance category (SPC). SPC ratings range from 1 to 5 with SPC-1 assigned to buildings that may be at risk of collapse during a strong earthquake and SPC 5 assigned to buildings reasonably capable of providing services to the public following a strong earthquake. State law requires all SPC-1 buildings to be removed from providing general acute care services by 2020 and all SPC-2 buildings to be removed from providing general acute care services by 2030. Therefore, a hospital facility that may be comprised of a number of hospital buildings meets the 2020 requirements if there are no SPC 1 buildings on campus. A hospital facility meets the 2030 requirements if all the buildings on campus are either SPC 3, 4 or 5.

On a desktop computer, hovering mouse pointer on the bars shows location of the SPC buildings on a map, hovering mouse pointer on dots on the map shows numbers of SPC rated buildings at that location.

Program Functions