The new American Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements for swimming pools

What have you heard about the new American Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements for swimming pools that come into effect in a few months?

On July 26, 2010, the US Department of Justice released updated ADA Standards for Accessible Design. Among the updates for a number of facility types were new requirements specifically for public swimming pools.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – what you, your business and your clients need to know in order to be compliant.

We are finding some cities opting out of the ADA swimming pool requirements on new apartment developments. I don't know how they are able to do it, but they are!
Thanks for the ADA Fact Sheet.

Very Interesting~~Thank you

Thanks for your comments David, we are not sure how they are able to do that either. With any new regulation/law, there are some grey areas, however the risk of not complying is so much higher than simply complying, so I'm curious to understand their thinking around this. Especially a new apartment building.

On a recently designed project we had decided to expand the sunning shelf (water beach) to include a ramp into the shallow end. A chairlift would simply ruin any beach theme.

Fortunately, and without a request on our part, the city said to forget the pool HCP requirements as they had opted out of that rule.

We did not get a clear answer on why.

I (not a lawyer) believe the option is that approved plans / construction before 3/15/12 can be under the old ADA requirement. So by choice they are opting out.

Apartment communities do not have to comply with the chair lifts because the apartments do not open their pool to the general public. Quote "Regulations may also apply to private residential facilities, such as homeowners, apartment and condo associations, if these facilities are open to the general public."

If a multifamily pool is only open to residents and their guests, is it really a public pool?

One of our sister communities has a pool and we would sell a limited number of pool passes to our residents. However, with this new regulation, we were told that by selling the passes to our residents (not in the same community as the pool) it became a "public" pool and had to meet the ADA requirements. Since the pool isn't very big and installing a chair ramp would have significantly reduced swim space, we had to withdraw the option for our residents.

One resident already put in her notice because of this, and I'm afraid we'll have more coming up.