West Hollywood for the first time has been added to a statewide incentive program developed by the California Residential Mitigation Program to help homeowners defray the cost of seismic retrofits to their houses.

Earthquake Brace + Bolt (EBB) has expanded to include home owners in zip codes 90046, 90048 and 90069 to help pay up to $3,000 in costs associated with retrofitting houses to reduce earthquake damage.

Registration for the program will be open through February. Homeowners can find information and participation details at EarthquakeBraceBolt.com. Once registration ends, qualifying homeowners will be selected through a random drawing.

Residential seismic retrofitting is done by bolting a house to its foundation to improve the connection between the wood framing and the concrete foundation and by adding plywood bracing around the perimeter of the crawl space to keep the house from toppling off of its foundation.

The opportunity to obtain assistance to retrofit older houses follows an announcement last month by the city of West Hollywood about its comprehensive Seismic Building Survey, which is cataloguing the city’s existing building stock in order to help the city determine steps forward for a seismic retrofit program. The current survey is continuing through February.

For information regarding building permits or general building and safety questions, call the city of West Hollywood at (323)848-6475. For people who are deaf or hearing impaired, call TTY (323)848-6496.