Legislature could block Rehoboth's 'pool laws'

With a vote looming Friday to enact prohibitions against vacation-home renters using backyard pools in Rehoboth Beach, one legislator is suggesting the General Assembly could take action to block a pool ban.

Rep. Ruth Briggs King, R-Georgetown, said lawmakers could consider legislation boxing Rehoboth in on pool regulation. Delaware municipalities operate under charters granted by the General Assembly, and those charters can be tweaked to carry out, or rule out, specific policies.

"The concern is, is the municipality taking action that could overstep their charter or raise other issues?" King said. "There's concern percolating among some of my colleagues based on what we're seeing and reading."

As drafted by mayor Sam Cooper, the ordinance would, starting in 2018, make it illegal for people renting vacation homes in Rehoboth to use any pool or hot tub at the property they're renting. Owners of homes with pools or hot tubs would have to cover and lock them whenever they have tenants.

The proposal is part of a broader ordinance governing pools that would require both landlords and year-round occupants with pools to get them licensed by the city, and allows Rehoboth to yank pool licenses if there are noise-law violations at the homes.

Commissioners who support the proposed pool laws say the recent popularity of in-ground pools has prompted a torrent of complaints about loud noise and voices at all hours of the day.

The local chamber of commerce has also come out against the pool proposal.

In a letter to the city, the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber asks the mayor and commissioners to "allow an opportunity for alternatives to reveal their strengths or weaknesses prior to any vote on the pool ordinance."

For Rehobothians accustomed to mostly fawning press – about Dogfish Head, Dolles and clean ocean ratings – it's all been a rude awakening.

"This issue has generated negative local, regional and national media attention," the Chamber's letter fretted.

The letter says the business group "cannot support the pool ordinance as currently presented." It encourages the commissioners to consider limiting how many people can stay in a rented home, or revoking rental licenses on properties where noise violations happen.

"Consider total negative impression and impact on all business, as well as property values," the chamber said of the proposed pool laws, and "the importance of continuing to attract the affluent and extended-stay vacationer."

Cooper has staunchly defended the proposed pool licensing law, and his amendment to it affecting renters at pool-equipped homes. He said it is needed to counter an epidemic of noise disruptions in Rehoboth's dense, leafy neighborhoods, where 50-foot-wide lots are the norm.

"It was pools that brought us here," Cooper said this month. "It's in the nature of the pool that the problem is. It's an attractive nuisance, if you will."

Some residents and property owners have encouraged the commissioners to control the pools by approving the proposed measures; many others, along with vacationers, have painted the ideas as out of touch, and insulting to the visitors who in large part drive Rehoboth's economy.

"It's almost like a punishment for people to say, you're not worthy to use this pool. You're not responsible enough to use this pool," said Kelley Gillespie, whose family bought a relatively newly built house, with a pool out back, in 2005. They occasionally rent the home, Gillespie said, but they budgeted for the purchase expecting to be able to charge pool-included rental rates.

A picture Gillespie took of her sons, Jack and Finn, holding signs opposing the measures as they stood in the pool gathered hundreds of likes and reposts on social media, she said.

A group of pool-law opponents formed a nonprofit group, Save Our Nation's Summer Capital, to work against the proposals. The name tweaks the moniker of a longstanding civic group, Save Our City, which has lobbied for the pool law, along with a strict noise ordinance that passed in April and suggested limits on the size and number of bedrooms in new houses.

Any action by the state Legislature would have to be squeezed into an already busy end-of-session calendar before June 30. The General Assembly has, in rare cases, stopped specific legislative drives by municipalities. At one point, legislators ruled out any annexation by Wilmington of the DuPont Experimental Station's land when a Wilmington official brought up the idea.

Rehoboth Beach's charter was tweaked by the General Assembly in 1991 to provide for absentee voting in all city elections.

King said she worries Rehoboth may put the county's broader tourism-driven economy at risk if it enacts the limits on renters' behavior it's envisioning.

"Tourism is one of the largest industries in Delaware, and I think we need to be mindful of that," she said.

Contact James Fisher at (302) 983-6772, on Twitter @JamesFisherTNJ or jfisher@delawareonline.com.