Thurston County, WA Swimming Pools & Spas: Fencing & Safety Requirements (2026)

030. Subsection (5) singles out private swimming pools: they cannot be built in any required yard, and they must be enclosed by a fence or other barrier at least forty-two inches high with a self-latching gate. The code writes the barrier standard as a hard sphere test rather than a style requirement: the fence or other barrier shall not allow passage of a four inch diameter sphere, so lattice, wide picket spacing and gaps under a gate all fail regardless of overall height. Above-ground pools get a narrow exception: if the pool wall itself is a vertical barrier of at least forty-two inches and the owner removes the ladder or takes an equivalent step to block access, no separate fence is required.

The subsection sits alongside a companion rule for gas pump islands in subsection (6), both dating to Ordinance 10595 in 1994 and carried forward through Ordinance 11398 in 1997. Zoning enforcement for Title 20, including this section, runs through the county's Title 26 Code Enforcement Ordinance, adopted by Ordinance 15274 in 2016. 020(F) names the director of Community Planning and Economic Development as the enforcement officer with authority to issue civil infractions and civil penalties for a Title 20 violation. 020(B) makes violating any listed TCC provision a misdemeanor. 030(E) caps a civil penalty at thirty days per violation, with each day the violation continues counted as a separate offense.