James City County, VA Swimming Pools & Spas: Fencing & Safety Requirements (2026)

Section 15-28, adopted originally in 1969 and last amended by Ordinance No. 56A-27 on March 11, 2025, makes it unlawful in any residentially zoned area to construct, maintain, use, possess or control a swimming pool without a proper barrier already in place, and separately unlawful to modify, alter or demolish that barrier or to let it sit unsecured while the pool is not in use. The section does not write its own fence specifications; instead it borrows the barrier definition from the currently applicable Building Code, meaning the Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code as adopted by the county, and requires that barrier to be inspected to meet all required safety measures.

Automatic pool covers do not satisfy the barrier requirement on their own. The ordinance's definition of 'swimming pool' is broad: any outdoor, human-made structure built from material other than natural earth or soil, designed to hold water for swimming or bathing, or any structure that impounds water more than two feet deep. In-ground pools are squarely covered. Above-ground pools, hot tubs and swim spas fall outside that in-ground definition but are still held to the applicable Building Code's barrier requirements for those structure types. Because enforcement runs through the Building Code, code compliance and unsafe-structure inspectors in Community Development, not just the police department, can act on an unsecured pool barrier complaint.