SANTA PAULA : Home Pool Security Rules Tightened

The Santa Paula City Council has voted to require stricter security on back-yard swimming pools and to expand the authority of the design review process to include second residential units and carports.

The council approved the changes Monday as part of a package of revisions to the city’s zoning ordinance.

The swimming pool security amendment to the city’s building code will help prevent accidental drownings in residential swimming pools, said Stephen Stuart, the city’s building and safety director.

The code already requires a homeowner to enclose a swimming pool inside a fence that is at least five feet tall, he said. When a house or other structure forms part of the enclosure, though, the revised code will now require the owner to install an alarm on doors opening toward the pool.

Alarms will be required for applicable doors on all new pools built in the city once the ordinance becomes effective July 1, Stuart said. He said there has been one accidental drowning of a child in Santa Paula in the last year that might have been prevented if an alarm had been in place.

In another amendment approved Monday, the council added second residential units, known as granny flats, and carports to the list of structures subject to city review. Granny flats were initially exempted from design review when state law limited their size to 600 square feet. But the state recently relaxed the definition, allowing them to be as large as 1,200 square feet.