Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Swimming pools and cohousing

[Evan Hunt (evanh]

I haven't lived in a cohousing community, but I did until recently live
in a conventional condominium complex that had a pool.

> -How critical is proximity (geographic and visual) as it relates to overall
> usage?  Our fear is that if we place the pool too far on the periphery,
> nobody will use it.

On the other hand if you make it too central, the people living close by
will complain about the noise.  (On the *other* other hand, they'll be able
to police it for unsupervised kids, unauthorized visitors, etc.)

There's pros and cons both ways.  I wouldn't worry too much about the
possibility that no one would use it, though; on hot days, people will go
some distance to find a pool.  (Make sure there's a nice footpath, though.)

> -For those communities with pools, was the pool financed and on-going
> maintenance handled by a sub-set of the community?

Maintenance costs came out of the dues; a few of the more interested
residents joined a volunteer "pool committee" to keep it clean and
chlorinated and try to ensure that the rules were followed.

> -A general question - for those communities with a pool, would you do
> anything differently?

Our number one problem was the temperature.  The pool had a solar heating
system that should have kept the water nice and toasty, but the solar
panels were more-or-less completely unmaintained; after a few years they
clogged up and stopped working completely, and somehow or other it was just
impossible to get anything done about it.  The first few years I lived
there, the pool was heavily used all summer; the last few years it was
usually deserted, for the simple reason that you'd die of exposure if you
swam for more than a few minutes--only on the hottest days of the year was
the pool tolerable.  (I sometimes saw people swimming in wetsuits.)

I'm not sure why this was allowed to happen, but my educated guess is that
the solar system was paid for on the assumption that it would save them
ever having to pay to heat the pool again--and so no money was allocated
for maintenance or replacement.

Solar technology has come a long way since that system was built--plus,
now they have those wonderful pool covers that prevent evaporative cooling
at night.  I recommend investigating both.  In any case, the main point is:
A pool that's comfortably warm will attract *lots* of people; a pool
that's cold will only attract the dedicated swimmers and maybe not even
them.  So make sure you take care of that.

                                                eh