Quote:
Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago
i've never seen an in ground pool in Chicago, I think they might be illegal.
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from this link i found, in-ground pools are not outright illegal in the city of chicago, but there are some limitations on what you can do with an in-ground pool that makes them very impractical for like 95% of the city.
https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/...ls.8.19.20.pdf
according to my reading of that, any above-ground or in-ground pool with a water depth of less than 4' and a maximum volume of less than 5,000 gallons can be built on a residential city lot without a permit.
at a consistent water depth of 4', that's only a 10'x16' rectangle or 14.5' diameter circle. that's not a terribly large pool, and if you're going through the giant expense of digging a pit for an in-ground pool, it's probably just not worth it for such a small pool.
now, if you want to put in a pool deeper/bigger than that, then you need to get a building permit, and to do that, you must meet certain criteria governing larger pools, and here's where it gets interesting. any pool deeper than 4' has to be set back at least 10' from all property lines in all directions. and given that standard city lots are only 25' wide, that means you'd only be able to put in a
5' wide pool in most city back yards, which would be very silly, which is likely why you almost never see deep/large in-ground pools in chicago back yards.
so in-ground backyard swimming pools aren't exactly illegal in chicago, they can only be relatively shallow/small or comically narrow if deeper.