Opposition is growing to the Generalitat’s decree-law that leaves it up to local councils to decide which public and private swimming pools can open this summer. To the complaints of the town councils and municipal entities are also added the administrators of estates and neighbors who live in communities with swimming pools and who also see “completely unfeasible” the application of an “ambiguous” rule that generates, for now , many more doubts than certainties. “It doesn’t seem right to me. How do you control who enters? What capacity will the pool have if it opens to the public? Who will enforce community rules? Will someone sneak into my flat?” asks Laura Cañigueral, a resident of Barcelona with a second home in Platja d’Aro. Their doubts are the reflection of a large majority of residents who do not see favorably that the community pool ends up being used for public use. For this to be possible, it is necessary that they reach an agreement with the respective City Council. Something that, according to industry opinion, will be highly unlikely in most cases.
The vice-president of the College of Finques Administrators of Girona, Cristina Pardo, gives a long list of reasons (practical, management, legal, liability, fiscal and coexistence) for communities of owners with swimming pools to oppose the your equipment may end up being public. “This will involve the obligation to have lifeguards, set timetables and capacity and enforce rules that, if they are not followed, will lead to major coexistence problems”, he explains. It also refers to possible entrance fees. “Any income received by a community is an economic activity with fiscal repercussions for each owner”. He adds that each community has civil liability insurance depending on the number of owners and that policies could be increased or new ones made if the pool opens to the public.
The manager of the Chamber of Urban Property of Girona, Miquel Costa, also sees “many difficulties” in the application, especially with regard to civil liability. “The swimming pool is a risk element that the community has insured for its users, with its own rules for a restricted circle”. It also anticipates coexistence problems. “Community and landscaped spaces already cause many conflicts; there are problems to combine neighborhood rest and leisure and if it is opened to third parties there will be many more”, he says. Marta Oliva, from her professional experience at the Chamber of Urban Property of Figueres, says that they are pools with a reduced capacity and that, in general, “the owners are quite reluctant to receive external people because they mostly do not have a surveillance service” , he affirms. He says that he sees the rule easier to comply with in campsites or hotels, which do enjoy, among others, lifeguard services.
The secretary of the Association of Property Administrators of Barcelona and Lleida, Alberto Izquierdo, adds that the decree law may cause a “comparative grievance between neighboring municipalities”, as it leaves the responsibility of deciding what is and what is not in the hands of the town councils it is not a climate shelter. He considers the document a “toast in the sun” because he understands that it is a regulation that is “unfeasible to enforce” as it is drafted. A document, he says, from which many questions arise. “How will capacity be controlled? How many people can enter? How will the owners share in the cost? Every year the communities set a budget for the expenditure in common areas, if more people come there will be more expenditure on the conservation of the space”, he explains.
The hot potato is on the roof of the town halls, which yesterday started receiving calls from some communities interested in knowing what it means to have a swimming pool that is a climate shelter. “But in reality we don’t have the answer”, explains the mayor of Platja d’Aro, Maurici Jiménez, who regrets that the councils have to apply a rule that “generates little clarity and legal certainty”. The consultancies that deal with communities of neighbors are also beginning to sense the restlessness of some owners. “We don’t see it as viable, it’s convoluted nonsense,” says Anna Palomares, from the Palomares consultancy in Girona.
