Bay regulations could make it tougher to get pools in Beach

VIRGINIA BEACH

It could become more difficult to get permits to build swimming pools along Virginia Beach's waterfront.

State regulators have told the city to tighten its Chesapeake Bay Act guidelines on when pools are allowed.

Those who want a pool may need to make additional changes to their property, such as planting buffers or creating other types of runoff barriers. In some cases, where there isn't room for alternatives, pools may not be permitted, officials said.

Virginia Beach is the only city in South Hampton Roads that doesn't consider a pool equivalent to such hard surfaces as roofs, driveways, decks and roads when deciding how much of a property is paved and whether it qualifies for a variance to the Chesapeake Bay Act.

A pool built of concrete is no better for the Bay than a driveway, according to the environmental regulators. Pools prevent storm water from being filtered by the ground before it runs into the Bay, said Shawn Smith, a principal environmental planner for the Chesapeake Bay Local Assistance Department.

City officials say there is a big difference. Water that falls into a pool, they say, stays there and never reaches the Bay. The department has given the city until June 30 to change its ordinance to list pools as impervious surfaces. If Virginia Beach doesn't comply, the case could be turned over to the attorney general's office for review.

Pool company officials and land-use attorneys call the change in pool status onerous.

City officials don't need bureaucrats from Richmond telling them how to apply the law, said Eddie Bourdon, a local attorney who has represented residents who live on the Bay or its tributaries.

"This isn't about bureaucrats running our life," he said. "It's about doing what's best for the Bay."

"I think it needs some discussion," said Jim Parker, a salesman with Polynesian Pools.

Thirty-seven of the cases, about 44 percent of those reviewed during a 10-month period in 2006 by Virginia Beach's Chesapeake Bay Board for exemptions to the act, involved pools, according to the state.

At its meeting last week, the Planning Commission recommended deferring the pool status change for further study. The City Council is scheduled to review the matter on June 24.

Virginia Beach's pool rules have generally been more lenient than other localities'.

The City Council in 1990 exempted pools from being considered impervious surfaces after being lobbied by developers and the pool industry.

The city didn't consider pools to be impervious because water doesn't run off from them and go into the lakes and rivers, said Bill Macali, a deputy city attorney.

That meant that Virginia Beach was treating its swimming pools as holding ponds for storm water, which they aren't, Smith said.

State officials weren't aware of the city's practice until recently.

In the past, staff with the local assistance board had simply reviewed what the city had on paper and didn't notice that pools weren't being considered in the process. It came to light during the last evaluation, when Smith looked over site plans, attended the city Chesapeake Bay Board meetings and reviewed how city officials were applying the ordinance.

"It was a state staff error," Smith said. "It should never have been approved with that caveat."

It doesn't mean that pools won't ever be built along the hundreds of miles of Virginia Beach shoreline protected by the act, Smith said, just that their effect be taken into consideration.

"They should be part of the storm water calculations," Smith said.

Deirdre Fernandes, (757) 222-5121, deirdre.fernandes@pilotonline.com