Durham, NC Swimming Pools & Spas: Fencing & Safety Requirements (2026)

UDO § 5.4.9, Swimming Pools, requires that 'all outdoor pools shall be enclosed by a fence,' and lets the exterior walls of a building count as part of that enclosure so long as the pool area ends up fully enclosed. Every point of ingress or egress through the fence, meaning every gate, must be 'equipped with self-closing and self-latching gates.' The fence itself must be at least four feet in height, and its maximum opacity is capped at 50%, so a fully solid privacy fence around a pool does not meet the standard; the barrier has to remain substantially see-through.

The fencing requirement attaches to any in-ground or above-ground pool 'that have a water depth over 24 inches and have a surface area of at least 100 square feet,' per the section's opening threshold, smaller wading pools fall outside these standards. The rule reaches both private residential pools and pools serving outdoor community, private club, townhouse, rowhouse, multiplex and apartment developments, though the larger shared pools carry an additional 100-foot setback from any adjoining single-family residential district. The ordinance's commentary notes that in-ground and above-ground pools remain independently subject to applicable public health and building code requirements, so the UDO fence standard layers on top of, rather than replaces, those separate code requirements.