Community Feedback Drives Changes in Watertown's Swimming Pool Fence Regulations
- Steve Jurrens
- Jun 2
- 3 min read
Northeast Radio SD News – Watertown, SD - A regulatory debate over residential swimming pool fences resurfaced in the Watertown City Council chambers on Monday night. They reviewed the first reading of Ordinance No. 26-14, a sweeping zoning text amendment to Chapter 21.79 designed to modernize local pool barriers by acknowledging advancements in safety cover technology.
The text amendment represents a regulatory pivot for the city, which is currently in the process of upgrading its localized code frameworks from the 2018 edition of the International Building Codes (IBC) to the newly released 2024 standards.
Fence Heights and Powered Covers
Under Watertown’s legacy pool ordinance, homeowners installing permanent in-ground or above-ground pools are strictly required to construct a continuous 6-foot safety barrier surrounding the water feature. However, Community Development Manager Brandi Hanten explained that community feedback and modern construction methods have triggered a need for alternative compliance paths.
The proposed ordinance establishes two distinct options for residential property owners:
1. The Four-Foot Path: Homeowners may lower their perimeter fence requirement to 48 inches (4 feet) if the pool is outfitted with an automated, powered safety cover that complies directly with rigid ASTM F1346 engineering standards.
2. The Six-Foot Path: If a powered, certified safety cover is not installed, the legacy 6-foot perimeter fence height remains mandatory.
Under both updated regulatory tracks, the city is introducing stricter structural definitions for boundaries. Fences must completely eliminate openings that would allow the physical passage of a standard 4-inch sphere, and all structural gates must be explicitly engineered to be self-closing, self-latching, and completely lockable.
Hanten emphasized that while the city is introducing flexibility, the administration is deliberately maintaining a safety bar that is considerably more restrictive than uniform international baselines.
“If we were to just go with the ISPSC standard... if you have an automatic pool cover that is to code, you do not have to have a barrier,” Hanten clarified to the council. “So we are trying to still uphold a higher standard.”
The Precedent of the Redo
The introduction of the pool cover amendment provoked an inquiry from Councilman Dan Schutte, who noted that a nearly identical policy change was thoroughly vetted and subsequently defeated by the council just one year ago on June 16, 2025.
Schutte expressed concern over a bureaucratic environment where failed items are continually re-submitted until an alteration in council seats shifts the balance of a vote.
"I don't want that to be a precedence as a city... that if we don't like the vote that the Council made we'll bring it back up next year or the year after," Schutte warned.
Turning his attention to the core safety mechanisms of the ordinance, Schutte offered a practical warning about human behavior. "Imagine you can have seat belts in a car, but it doesn't mean you're going to be wearing them," Schutte noted, applying the logic to automated mechanical structures. "You could have a cover, it doesn't mean you're going to have the cover up over the pool... why lower it down to 4 foot?"
Councilman Peters stepped in and said that fresh perspectives are entirely natural in local governance.
"If you think back to a year ago, we had a different Council at the time," Peters argued. "We've got three different seats now. Me personally, it's taken—I hate to say it—a year to understand what is good because I've had conversations with folks that do have swimming pools in the community... I think it's appropriate to bring it back."
Hanten verified that the city has experienced a distinct uptick in permanent residential pool permit applications, prompting a public demand for view-shed flexibility that standard 6-foot privacy fences frequently disrupt.
Next Steps
Because the item was presented strictly as a formal first reading, no active motions or binding votes were executed by the council. The ordinance is scheduled to return to the floor for a high-stakes second reading and potential final adoption on Monday, June 15, 2026.
