San Marcos, CA Swimming Pools & Spas: Fencing & Safety Requirements (2026)

060 defines a swimming pool as any confined body of water exceeding two feet in depth, above or below finished grade, designed or used for swimming, bathing or therapeutic purposes. 070 requires every such pool on a lot or parcel of one acre or less, plus every hotel, motel, apartment house, planned mobilehome development, and public swimming pool citywide, to be enclosed by a natural barrier, retaining wall, fence, or other structure at least five feet high measured from the exterior grade, built so it cannot be climbed like a ladder and with no horizontal openings wider than five inches.

Any gate in that enclosure must be self-closing and self-latching, with the latch positioned at least four feet six inches above the grade below it, and every gate must stay closed and latched at all times. The section also bars installing a pool where it would block ingress or egress to a building. Owners may seek relief in two ways: a modification application to the County Zoning Administrator, granted only for an adults-only mobilehome park with alternate safeguards, a site where a fence is physically impractical, or an equally effective alternate control measure; or, separately, a full or partial waiver from the Director of Planning Services available only where a plot map shows more than five pools within 1,000 feet and at least half of them predate June 18, 1976 and don't otherwise comply.

Pools completely enclosed within a building's walls are exempt under subsection (f). An applicant denied a modification or waiver may appeal to the Board of Planning and Zoning Appeals, whose decision is final. 100 declares any pool erected or maintained contrary to the article a public nuisance, with a missing required fence treated as prima facie evidence of that nuisance, subject to abatement under the City's Uniform Public Nuisance Abatement Procedure.