1.0 Project Understanding 2.0 Scope of Work Completed
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June 2, 2014 Project No.130-2916 Will Cipes PHR LA Mart, LLC 3191 Casitas Avenue, Suite 130 Los Angeles, California 90039 RE: REVIEW OF FAULTING AND OTHER SEISMIC HAZARDS FOR DEVELOPMENT PROJECT, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA Dear Mr. Cipes: Golder Associates Inc. (“Golder”) has prepared this technical report (the “Report”) to present its findings of a review of available information on potential active faulting and other seismic hazards for an approximately 10-acre property located at 1900 and 1933 South Broadway in Los Angeles, California (APN No.s: 5126-030-005, 5126-030-006, 5126-030-009, 5126-030-011, 5126-031-009, 5126-031-010) (collectively, the “Property”). 1.0 PROJECT UNDERSTANDING The Property is currently developed with the approximately 866,000 square foot, 12-story Reef building and a surface parking lot. The proposed project consists of improvements and additions to the existing Reef building and the construction of approximately 1,900 residential dwelling units, a 250 room hotel, and 100,000 square feet of commercial space (the “Project”). In addition, the Project will include a subterranean parking structure and an above grade parking structure. A preliminary site plan is included as Attachment A. 2.0 SCOPE OF WORK COMPLETED Golder performed an office-based review of available information regarding fault activity and seismic hazards at the Property. Our review addressed the following: Assess the presence of known active faults or earthquake fault zones crossing the Property. Assess whether the Property is located in a mapped seismic hazard zone. Provide preliminary peak ground and spectral accelerations suitable for application of the 2013 California Building Code for the Property. Golder reviewed the following documents in order to complete the tasks outlined above: “State of California Special Studies Zones Revised Official Map, Hollywood Quadrangle”, prepared by the State of California Resources Agency, Department of Conservation, Division of Mines and Geology, dated July 1, 1986, attached hereto as Attachment B. “State of California Seismic Hazard Zones Official Map, Hollywood Quadrangle”, prepared by the State of California Resources Agency, Department of Conservation, Division of Mines and Geology, dated March 25, 1999, attached hereto as Attachment C. “Seismic Hazard Zone Report for the Hollywood 7.5-Minute Quadrangle, Los Angeles County, California (Seismic Hazard Zone Report 026)”, prepared by the State of 1302916 LA Mart Review Letter 060214.docx Golder Associates Inc. 230 Commerce, Suite 200 Irvine, CA 92602 USA Tel: (714) 508-4400 Fax: (714) 508-4401 www.golder.com Golder Associates: Operations in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America and South America Golder, Golder Associates and the GA globe design are trademarks of Golder Associates Corporation Will Cipes CONFIDENTIAL – SUBJECT TO ATTORNEY CLIENT PRIVILEGE June 2, 2014 PHR LA Mart, LLC 2 130-2916 California Resources Agency, Department of Conservation, Division of Mines and Geology, dated 1998, attached hereto as Attachment D. “Fault Evaluation Report FER-173, Northern Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone, Los Angeles County, California”, prepared by the State of California Resources Agency, Department of Conservation, Division of Mines and Geology, dated November 15, 1986, attached hereto as Attachment E. “Puente Hills Blind-Thrust System, Los Angeles, California”, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 92, No. 8, pp. 2946-2960, December 2002. (Shaw et al. 2002), attached hereto as Attachment F. “Safety Element of the Los Angeles City General Plan”, prepared by the Department of City Planning, Los Angeles, California, Approved by the City Planning Commission August 8, 1996; adopted by the City Council November 26, 1996, attached hereto as Attachment G. In addition to the documents above, Golder consulted the following websites: California Department of Conservation (http://www.conservation.ca.gov). United States Geological Survey (http://www.usgs.gov). The Zone Information and Map Access System for the City of Los Angeles (ZIMAS) (http://www.zimas.lacity.org). Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) (http://www.scec.org). 3.0 FINDINGS 3.1 Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault Zones The Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault Zoning Act, enacted in 1972, requires the State of California Geologist to delineate boundaries around known active faults. The purpose of the Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault Zoning Act is to regulate development near active faults to mitigate the hazard of surface fault rupture. Under California law, an active fault is one that has evidence for surface rupture in the Holocene Epoch (approximately the last 11,000 years). Since 1972, earthquake fault zone maps have been prepared by the State Geologist. Earthquake fault zones have been defined around most of the known active faults in California. Where mapped, the boundaries of these earthquake fault zones are generally approximately 500 feet on either side of the mapped active fault trace(s). If a proposed development is located within the boundaries of the earthquake fault zone drawn by the State Geologist, then an investigation must be undertaken to establish whether the trace of an active fault is located on the proposed development site. If an active fault is found at the site, then a structure for human occupancy cannot be constructed over the trace of the fault and must be set back from the fault trace (generally 50 feet) to avoid the fault rupture hazard. The Property is not located within an Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault Zone. 3.2 Other Fault Zones The Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault Zoning Act applies to the entire State of California, and fault investigations are required for sites within these fault zones as described above. Local jurisdictions may also establish their own special studies fault zones where the State has not yet mapped potentially active faults. The current version of the Safety Element of the Los Angeles City General Plan contains a section on faults and establishes Fault Rupture Study Areas. The Property is not located within a Fault Rupture Study Area. 1302916 LA Mart Review Letter 060214.docx Will Cipes CONFIDENTIAL – SUBJECT TO ATTORNEY CLIENT PRIVILEGE June 2, 2014 PHR LA Mart, LLC 3 130-2916 The City of Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) requires investigations for ground surface rupture due to earthquake faulting for properties located within Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault Zones. Projects located outside of an Earthquake Fault Zone are exempt from this requirement per the City of Los Angeles. However, the exemption does not preclude the Grading Division of LADBS from requiring an investigation outside of the established zones, when a property is located in the proximity of a known fault. The property is not located in the proximity of a known fault. The Property is located within the Los Angeles Segment of the Puente Hills Blind Thrust Fault System, as indicated by ZIMAS and Shaw et al. (2002). As noted by SCEC, “…the Puente Hills thrust fault is "blind" because it never breaks through at the surface, instead producing folds in the rocks above it, which may sometimes be expressed as chain of low hills, raised up by successive earthquakes along the fault below.” These “low hills” or warping of the ground surface would be most evident where the projection of the fault would daylight on the ground surface (the fault trace). The Property is not located within the fault traces mapped by Shaw et al (2002) for the Puente Hills Blind Thrust Fault System. Based on Shaw et al. (2002), the Property is located approximately 1.5 miles to the north of the Puente Hills Fault trace and approximately 1.5 miles south of the upper Elysian Park fault. However, given its location within the Puente Hills Blind Thrust Fault System, and its location approximately 4 km above the east-dipping fault plane, the Property could be subjected to very strong ground shaking during the Project’s design life, as discussed in Section 3.4 below. 3.3 Other Seismic Hazard Zones The State of California Seismic Hazards Mapping Act, updated in 2007, requires the State Geologist to compile maps identifying seismic hazard zones. These seismic hazards include liquefaction, slope instability, tsunamis, and seiches. Under the Act, cities and counties must require that a geotechnical report for proposed developments address the seismic hazards if a site is located within a mapped Seismic Hazard Zone. The Property is not located within a mapped Seismic Hazard Zone. 3.4 Ground Shaking The Property is located in the seismically active region of Southern California. As with all development in Southern California, the Property is expected to be subjected to earthquake-related hazards during its design life. One potential seismic hazard is strong earthquake ground shaking. In general, the strongest shaking can be expected closest to major high slip rate and seismically active faults because they generate frequent and large earthquakes (e.g. the San Andreas fault). Faults with lower slip rates typically have less frequent and smaller magnitude earthquakes. As noted in Section 3.2, above, the Property is located near the Los Angeles segment of the Puente Hills Blind Thrust Fault System and approximately 4 km above the Puente Hills Fault plane. According to Shaw et al. (2002), the Puente Hills fault has broken at least four times in the previous 11,000 years, and has generated large earthquakes in excess of magnitude 7. Preliminary building code seismic design parameters are provided in Table 1, below. These parameters are provided as initial values to indicate the general magnitude of ground motions expected at the Property. They are based on the assumption that the Property is underlain by Site Class D soils and that the proposed structures on Property will be Risk Category I, II, or III. We can provide revised, design- level seismic parameters after completing a geotechnical investigation at the Property. 1302916 LA Mart Review Letter 060214.docx Will Cipes CONFIDENTIAL – SUBJECT TO ATTORNEY CLIENT PRIVILEGE June 2, 2014 PHR LA Mart, LLC 4 130-2916 Table 1.