Rehoboth board makes waves over swimming pools

Pools and summer go together like ice and cream, sand and castles, hot and dog.

But this summer in Rehoboth Beach, backyard pools are roiling up political drama and neighborly spats.

The city's board of commissioners is giving serious thought to denying renters of vacation homes the ability to swim in pools at the houses they rent. The reason? Ever-larger houses with pools, some people say, are causing far too much noise and rowdiness in residential neighborhoods.

The owners of such properties are understandably upset, saying such a move would not only cost them income, but could drive renters away from a resort that depends on their summer spending to function.

But supporters of the proposed pool rules, who also support suggested restrictions on home sizes and occupancy limits for rented properties, say real estate trends toward supersized homes are putting the resort's essential character at risk.

"We have a clean ocean, a nice boardwalk, nice shops, nice restaurants," said Linda Kauffman, a full-time Rehoboth resident who supports adding occupancy, home size and new pool regulations to the town code, although she's ambivalent about locking renters out of pools. "It's just a desirable place. Unfortunately, we're a victim of our own success. For houses today to be teardown houses at $1 million" – purchased by owners who immediately replace them with new construction – "is mind-boggling. But that's what people are paying."

Concerns like those are shared by Rehoboth Beach Mayor Sam Cooper. He's proposed the pool rule, writing in draft legislation that the increasing popularity of rented homes with pools will have a "dramatic and destabilizing" effect on Rehoboth's character.

In an interview, Cooper compared the push to rein in large homes, noise and pools to the resort's decision to reduce building height limits in the 1960s, when 80-foot buildings were legally possible. The limit for boardwalk-facing buildings now is 42 feet, which keeps their shadows from darkening the beach.

"This is the high-rise fight of our generation, if you will," Cooper said. Many residents, he said, "have experienced a degradation in their quality of life because of primarily new houses, but the introduction of the pools has been the big tipping point. They've had rentals around them and it's no problem. But it's the introduction of these pools that has really tipped the balance."

Owners of pool-equipped properties beg to differ. They say they're being blamed for quality-of-life complaints that, in many cases, have nothing to do with the presence of pools.

Beyond that, they warn, Rehoboth is putting its reputation as a sought-after vacation destination at risk by singling out vacationers for scrutiny.

"They really, really need to take into account the economic consequences of what they're saying," said Roseann Roccaro, who bought a Rehoboth cottage with her spouse in 2012 and added a $45,000 pool and spa in 2014. "It is a resort, and it has been for quite awhile. Some of the things they're proposing could have a severe effect on welcoming visitors and renters."

A real estate agents group, the Sussex County Association of Realtors, is also firmly in opposition. "Rehoboth Beach has prospered in years past largely due to the increased level of tourism dollars pumped into the local economy," said Sandy Greene, chair of SCAOR's public policy committee. "Visitors expect a certain level of amenities when they choose coastal Delaware as their vacation destination. This proposed ordinance will, in essence, bite the hand that feeds it."

Cooper, in the interview, said he worries about what his town will become if waves of visitors, staying in ever-larger houses, come to overwhelm the number of permanent residents.

"The people who call it home, which to me really make up the fabric of the community, are gonna say, you know, my house is worth $1.5 million or whatever, maybe it's time to pull out of here. So that all we have then is rentals," Cooper said. "It's the churches, it's the library, it's the VFW, it's the American Legion, it's the VIA [Village Improvement Association], it's all these things that make a community. At the point it's just a town of vacationers, you don't really need those things. To me, the value of Rehoboth is living in it."

And he did not agree with the assertions of some visitors that their cohort is just as important to Rehoboth as its year-round residents.

People say, 'We're a part of this community, and we come here one week a year,' " Cooper said. "Obviously, you have some sense of it, but you don't know what it's all about."

For Lori Bloxom, who with her husband bought a rental property on Country Club Lane last year, the fracas is a sign that many Rehoboth residents expect a more sedate atmosphere than they should, given they live in a beach town that attracts millions of visitors a year.

"Too many people have unrealistic expectations of the level of quiet you're going to have when you have this many people," Bloxom said. "Everyone understands that the price you pay for living at the beach year-round is summer. The noises of summer are the sounds of our town thriving, you know?"

The Bloxoms replaced the home they bought with new construction that would fit in on an HGTV show, and included a small inground pool in the backyard.

Increasingly, she said, renters expect amenities like that when they vacation.

"Our property manager calls it aspirational living," she said. "Whether you don't have the time to come to the beach often enough to own a property or you can't afford your dream beach house, well, at least you can afford it for a week."

Like Roccaro, she expects to live in the home full-time when she and her husband retire; until then, they'll rent it to help pay for the cost of the investment.

Kauffman said before retiring she, too, rented the home in which she now lives. The difference between then and now, she said, is the sheer size of some homes, which can sleep several large families at once.

"Twenty-five people in one area makes noise. Period. The end," Kauffman said.

In the daytime, that's fine, but at night, the racket can drive her to distraction.

"To me, the answer is to reduce the size of the houses and reduce occupancy," Kauffman said. She points to Panama City, Fla., and State College, Pa., as examples of towns that have, for different reasons, put caps on occupancy of homes.

Cooper agreed that the city would benefit from a house-size limit. Rehoboth already has a complex mechanism in place to limit a home's size in relation to its lot, and is considering a change that would force owners who want pools to accept more stringent house-size limits.

"No matter how much land you own, at some point, your house is just too big for Rehoboth," Cooper said. "A 10,000-square-foot house just would be totally out of character."

There are elected officials who think Rehoboth is rushing changes into place to satisfy demands of vocal year-rounders. "Because a home has a pool and there's noise, it doesn't mean the noise came from the pool," said Kathy McGuiness, a commissioner. "It's a knee-jerk reaction. We can do better as a city."

Still, Cooper said he may ask for a vote on his pool-locking law in late June. As drafted, it says that "no unenclosed pool shall be used at any time in conjunction with a vacation rental after Jan. 1, 2018.... The pool shall at all times the property is used for a vacation rental be covered by a locked cover."

Even if the pool-locking law doesn't pass, a broader ordinance requiring pools to be licensed, and requiring annual inspections of rental-home pools, seems likely to meet approval by the commissioners.

Taking actions like that will be "a course that I envision will only enhance the town," Cooper said. "If you let the market decide what you're going to be, you'll be what the market will have you be. If you decide you're going be something better than the market, I think it'll flourish."

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