Pool for Community

Hello all,

Our neighborhood is starting too look into putting a pool in. Its actually a longer story then that but I will save ya'll the trouble of reading all of it. My basic question is what is everyones average yearly pool costs? Our community when finished will be around 500 houses. Are they even worth the costs involved?

Sorry if this is a repeat question, the search function is not working for me and I did not see a pool topic discussed in the past 3 months.

Thanks for the help!

What liability/insurance cost are associated with community pools?

Swimming Pool:

A hole in the ground into which one pours money.



My HOA's operational cost is about $20,000 per year.

One approach is to google for {HOA annual budget pool} and check the many docs that come up. To get you in the ballpark:

-- $33k per year circa 2015 (similar for 2014) for this Colorado HOA: http://www.weatherstonecolorado.org/index_htm_files/WS_Financials_2015-01.pdf

-- $42k in 2015 for this Tucson, Arizona HOA (probably open year round) http://www.civano1.com/pages/documents/2015FinalAPPROVEDBudgetat71.pdf

-- $65k in 2014 for this North Carolina HOA (open year round?): http://www.birkdalehoa.com/picture/CopyofBirkdaleHOA2014Budget.pdf

-- $26k circa 2014 for this Ohio HOA: http://www.wedgewoodhoa.org/annual-budget/

-- $28k or so circa 2015 for this Florida HOA: http://www.ghohomes.com/images/DocLibrary/Riverwind%202015%20HOA%20Budget.pdf

If I were you, I would study some twenty budgets and look at the line items to see what was relevant to the pool and see why there is a wide variation. Consider emailing the HOAs to find out how many months their pools are open.

This likey does not take into account any re-surfacing that might be required every so often. Here's a pretty tragic and costly situation with one HOA pool: http://miramonte.msihoa.co/view/miramonte-ranch-pool-project-faqs.aspx

Thanks all for the responses! I guess I will give some background then into why I have asked this question. Sorry if it is a little bit too long!

The neighborhood I recently moved into has been around for about 7 - 8 years. When it started there was a completely different builder at the time and in their contract for the area, they were required to build an amenity before the 100th house was sold or our city (Wentzville, MO) would not allow them to build anymore until they build the amenity. At the time the builder had a bid for $300K for the pool This contract i believe is binding to the bank that owns all of the plots as well. Well the original builder put it into the contract that they would build a pool and playground area. Well a few years into building house that builder went bankrupt and stopped building. This caused the neighborhood to start to become very unattractive since there was no longer upkeep or house to be sold. A year or so later a different builder, Payne (current builder), came in and decided to try and sell a few house to see if it would work out. Well they did and decided to start building more houses and clean up the neighborhood some. Few years later, they are starting to approach this 100 house mark. The builder was selling house stating that there was going to be a pool put in soon and some families decided to move here based on that. Well, since Payne was getting close to the 100 house mark they got a new and updated quote on the pool. The pool will now cost 800K to build and Payne was not ready for that. Due to this, Payne and the Bank decided to pursue placing a park area instead since it would be cheaper to do. However, these decisions were made without informing the residents about it and continued to sell the aspect of a pool to potential buyers. One of the residents caught onto this and one thing lead to another and there was a meeting between the residents, banker, builder and the city. During that meeting it was brought to light that many residents had not been paying their HOA dues to the bank (Bank currently is the HOA). The builder and banker stated they did not believe we would be able to sustain a pool and did not have the money for putting a pool in currently which is why they were talking about doing a park area. However there are some residents that do not believe this and still want the pool. The big problem is, this would cause the builder to most likely leave and this builder is one of the better builders in the area.

Now that these issues were brought to light, I and a few residents are trying to do research to see if a pool is reasonable and what all of the costs are associated with it. Some of the residents do not really understand all the costs that come with a pool and thus is why I am asking other HOAs what they annually pay for theirs. I am working on putting all this information together to share with everyone else so that we hopefully make a well informed decision. However, based on the responses i have received on this forum there are more than just costs to consider. Any advise on the Pool subject is very helpful! Most of us are new to this and hearing other HOAs experiences with pools is very helpful.

Again, sorry for the long post. I really appreciate all the responses I have received!

It looks like you see that swimming pools work like a sales tool to entice buyers to buy. Keep that in mind when putting this in perspective. The amenity is more of a luxury item for your HOA. Which by all appearances is still developer controlled. A developer controlled HOA works a bit differently than an member/owner owned HOA. Which eventually your HOA will become. However, it seems some are trying to put the cart before the horse in this situation. Demanding of the pool installation at this stage is pushing that cart...

Typically this is what happens in the forming of a typical HOA. Example: A developer purchases 101 acres of land. They then divide that land into 100 acres for homes and 1 acre for amenities. (clubhouse, pool, tennis court, etc). The developer makes their money off the sale of these 1 acre lots. The builder then builds on these lots. The builder/developer can be separate or the same. The Developer/Builder forms an HOA as a sales tool to attract potential buyers. They agree to put in certain amenities they feel best that will attract buyers.

A pool or other amenity is basically the price of doing business to create business. However, it's no guarantee they can afford to put in the amenity even if promised. Their choice is to possibly raise dues or have a special assessment of their current membership to pay for it. A HOA is ONLY funded by it's members FOR its's members. Considering there are those not paying their dues in the HOA and the expense of pursuing collections, the developer may not be able to afford the pool.

Most developers/builders will eventually install the amenity and walk away. They turn over the HOA to the membership. In your case, your HOA faces the more expensive part of owning the pool versus installation. The long term maintenance of having a pool or any amenity is the real expense of the item. 20 years from now your HOA will most likely have spent more on the pool than the developer ever paid for it.

Now keep in mind many of us here do have pools and are NOT anti-pool. We just consider them the "necessary evil" that they are. I think having a pool does make our HOA more attractive to potential buyers. It does lower the expense on the individual and noise level than if everyone was allowed to have their own pool. I'd rather pay $50 portion of my dues to pay for pool than actually owning one.

This is why I say keep this idea in perspective. Understand what that pool really means and who is responsible. The developer may be on the hook for installation but then you lose your developer. You all may have to chip in more money to pay for it. It pays for itself in potential buyer attracting which then pays off when someone wants to sell their home. Factor in that worth versus not having a pool. That then is where you start to look into selling the idea of a pool.

You stated that "The builder and banker stated they did not believe we would be able to sustain a pool and did not have the money for putting a pool in currently which is why they were talking about doing a park area."

I understand no one wants to believe a banker or builder, but I would personally pay attention to this statement because the bank is administering your HOA and they have the necessary skills and experience to assess such an idea and as well look out for the future of your HOA. The builder also has experience in such matters which may be why they have put a park idea on the table.

If they say you don't have the money, why is there still a discussion? Are you willing to put up a special assessment or have the HOA take out a loan?

Our new HOA hood was sold with the idea of sidewalks and street lights and when it was time to turn over the HOA to the owners, at our first meeting, we voted against installing them and kept the money in the account for future reserves.

Our daughter lives in an HOA with 300 single and 200 townhouses, and their beautiful pool complex is empty 90% of the time. Such a shame because it is a really pretty set up!

You may want to save yourself some time and go door to door and just do a simple poll;
Do you want to support the construction and future expense of a pool? Don't overthink this, JonD1 is spot on.

Doing an internet search for SheliaH HOATalk Pool provided the following thread started by you:

Subject: Swimming pool vs. property values 2009 thread

Fellow Missouri association here. When I purchased the pool was attractive, now that I am on the board I hate it and would fill it in in a heartbeat.

1) we have about 200 homes with few children and spend around 10-12k per year on our pool operating costs. You will also need to reserve for future expenses. Our pool would be undersized if we had more kids.

2) We get about 14 weeks per year of usage from our pool.

3) a 700 home association in our area has a much larger pool,that is still woefully small due to lots of children in the neighborhood. They are considering a second pool. In addition to their operating costs they have had to hire security for peak times to help keep things under control.

4) I agree about the attractive nuisance part. We have had some incredibly random things happen that I couldn't have imagined prior to being on the board.