Water feature at Buda business faces permit requirements

BUDA — With the scorching heat of the Texas summer, several bars and other businesses in the Austin area have installed stock tanks for customers to enjoy — and Meridian in Buda has followed suit.

“We had a pretty significant dip last summer, so we were just trying to find a way to have an extra draw or an extra feature that customers can enjoy. We've seen them at bars across Austin and I heard there’s one in Mardinale; there’s some actual identical ones in Austin,” said Travis Sutherland, owner of Meridian. “There's some benches on the side where you can sit and you can put your feet in. I mean, theoretically, you can sit in there for a minute, but it's mainly to cool off, however people want to use it.”

And while the modified water trough was installed on June 24 to help provide some relief during the warmest months of the summer, it could soon come to an end at Meridian due to state of Texas codes and local permitting regulations. On June 25, according to Sutherland, he was contacted by the city of Buda to notify him that the trough would need permitting and it could not be made open to the public until permit approval.

The city of Buda reached out to the Hays County Development Services Department for assistance in identifying state regulation codes that could be applicable in this case. While the county’s department does not have the regulatory authority or a pool program to issue permits, the city of Buda does.

“As part of the process of verifying the permit requirements for the Cowboy Pool, we did reach out to Hays County to discuss how this pool might be classified,” said city of Buda Development Services Director Angela Kennedy.

It was determined that the trough is a Class C public pool per Title 25 Chapter 265 of the Texas Administrative Code. Public pools, as defined in the code, are “classified and referred to as follows: any man-made permanently installed or non-portable structure, basin, chamber or tank containing an artificial body of water that is maintained or used expressly for public recreation, swimming, diving, aquatic sports or other aquatic activity.”

Other components of the definition, as written in the code, are stated below.

• Public pools include, but are not limited to, activity pools, catch pools, lazy or leisure river pools, wave action pools, vortex pools, therapy pools and wading pools.

• A public pool may be publicly or privately owned and may be operated by an owner, lessee, operator, licensee or concessionaire.

• A fee for use may or not be charged.

• The term does not include a residential pool, artificial swimming lagoon, floatation system or chamber or a body of water that continuously recirculates water from a spring.

After the determination was made, Sutherland was called into a meeting with city of Buda and Hays County officials and, while he was expecting a friendly conversation to work toward a solution to benefit the community, he felt that there was going to be no discussion or debate.

Permit requirements, as given to Sutherland, include: electrical requirements, self-closing gates, spa and pool equipment enclosures, water quality testing and reporting, a certified pool operator and the construction of a deck around the pool. And while he understands these would “make sense” for a typical public pool, Sutherland said that there are some that do not apply to a "temporary" water trough.

“When I asked for that citation, they showed me this paper; the first thing that it describes in the definition for a public pool is something that's permanent and non-portable, which this definitely didn't qualify for. They told me that if you were going to get a permit, these are the things you have to do and one of them was, like, build a deck around the pool, which doesn't say what kind of deck,” Sutherland said. “But obviously, you wouldn’t construct a deck for a temporary thing, so all of it together, it was pretty obvious to me that this didn’t apply and should be exempt from the permitting.”

When looking at permitting and regulations, Eric Van Gaasbeek, chief environmental health specialist with Hays County Development Services, explained that there should be precautions set in place to protect the public, especially when in contact with water. He stated that even though it could be said that the pool is portable, that would require daily emptying, which could lead to significant water loss due to the pool size measuring 10 feet in diameter and less than two feet deep.

“The sanitarian that I did speak with, who has years of experience, he indicated that if they were to fill up the tank every single day and drain it every single day, then it would not constitute any type of pool to be regulated,” Van Gaasbeek said. “But based on the size of what that pool was, it looked like it probably held 1,000 gallons, I highly doubt they would be filling it and dumping it every day.”

Kennedy said that there are no exceptions for Meridian in terms of obtaining a permit. Because the regulations were adopted by the state of Texas, the city of Buda does not have authority to waive the requirements.

“Our obligation is just to ensure that all federal and state requirements, as well as local codes, are met within the city of Buda, so unfortunately, no, we would not be able to waive those requirements. Any public pool that would be used commercially would require the permit and frankly, the permit application is the first step in the process for the city to verify whether or not there are additional requirements to meet those state safety standards,” explained Kennedy.

The city of Buda requested that the owners of Meridian not open the pool to public use until the permit application is received and that the permit is used. Sutherland confirmed that there is a sign designating that the pool is closed to the public.

As of Friday, July 12, the city of Buda has not received a permit application from Meridian.

There would be fines issued only if the owner chose to move forward with making the pool publicly accessible, as that would cause a public health risk, according to Kennedy.

Because these types of attractions are becoming more popular for several businesses, as seen in the Austin area, Sutherland is concerned that a “dangerous precedent” is being set with permitting requirements and treatment from officials.

For incoming businesses, Kennedy said that the city has several ways for the public to find information about development regulations and the permitting process.

“The city has a pretty robust communications effort in the department regarding all of our development regulations and we're continuing to work on education campaigns for all of our various development permitting processes,” she said. “We also have information on our website regarding what those processes are, as well as the ordinances that are published and available.”

For more information on permitting requirements for the city of Buda, visit www.budatx.gov/112/Development-Services.