Council Will Table Pools Bill

We invited Courtney Watson to join us at the end of our podcast today. With her pools legislation very much in the news this week we wanted to give her a chance to tell us where things stood at the end of the week. She told us that the council will likely table the pools bill…for now.

That’s probably a good idea. New information seems to come out daily. Earlier in the day Courtney, along with Councilpersons Ball, Terrasa and Sigaty, took a tour of the Watermont Swim Club in Elkridge. Watermont has become the poster child for the private pools property tax relief proponents.

It was while at Waterloo that Courtney learned from Conrad Katulski that the Elkridge Club had lost members when the Taylor Village community pool opened six years ago. She wasn’t aware that the HOA pool had sold memberships outside of their HOA members. This is particularly pertinent because HOA’s don’t pay property taxes on their pools giving them an economic advantage in competing for new members.

Nothing is ever simple.

According to Courtney the people who wrote the tax code consider an HOA pool to be a community asset that raises the value of all the homes in the HOA community more than making up for any loss revenue that a two acre recreation area would otherwise produce.

At least that’s how I sort of understood it.

In any event property tax relief for the HoCo private pools is not going to float before the council goes on summer break. For now it's tabled.