La Plata County, CO Swimming Pools & Spas: Pool Permits (2026)

La Plata County adopts the 2024 International Building Code and rewrites its administrative chapter in Section 18-35. Section 105.1 requires anyone who intends to construct, enlarge, alter, repair, move, demolish, or change the occupancy of a building or structure to apply to the building official first, and Section 105.2 then lists the work that needs no building permit. Item 6 under the Building heading is residential swimming pools not within a structure or enclosure. An in-ground or above-ground residential pool that sits in the open in unincorporated La Plata County therefore skips the building permit, while a pool built inside a structure or an enclosure is outside the exemption and follows the ordinary application steps in Section 105.3, filed through the Building Department Permit Portal.

The same item sends public swimming pools and mineral baths to the state instead: they must comply with Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment regulations, 5 CCR 1003-5 et seq.

Section 105.2.4 keeps the exemption narrow. Exempt work still has to meet other provisions of the La Plata County Code, including setback requirements from property lines, height limitations in the Animas Valley, Chapter 19, and Chapter 78 together with any later enactments on flood plain management. Section 105.1 adds that a building permit does not supersede the need for separate permits for grading, temporary uses or structures, floodplain development, land use, and activities of interest. The pool item appears only under the Building heading; the Gas, Mechanical, and Plumbing exemption lists that follow contain no pool entry.