Anti-infinity compromise leaves decision with councils
The NSW Office of Local Government (OLG) has released a practice note for councils to help overcome some of the confusion with the dubious NSW "anti-infinity" amendment to the Building Code of Australia (BCA).
This is the promised “work around” intended to enable the construction of “out of the ground” walls such as infinity pools. While it is a largely positive development, it still leaves councils with the option of not considering the exemptions which industry members have been arguing should be scrapped altogether.
Key points of the practice note include:
• There are instances where site specific considerations may prevent a swimming pool from being surrounded by a child resistant barrier, for example swimming pools located on a cliff edge or on steeply sloping ground.
• A local authority may grant an exemption, and if so issue a compliance certificate that allows the swimming pool to be considered compliant for the purposes of the Act, even though it may not be surrounded by a child resistant barrier.
Pool designer Peter Glass has been running a campaign for 10 months to have the amendment scrapped, including forming the Out-of-Ground Pool Wall Alliance (OOGPWA). He says that while Practice Note 17 is not perfect, the most important element of it is that it now references the Standard.
“Thankfully it appears that this huge effort has not been in vain,” he says. “Practice Note No.17, incorporating my detailed feedback, has been issued by the Office of Local Government and will go some way towards allowing pools with ‘out-of-ground pool wall’ barriers to be legalised again,” he says.
Glass specifically mentions that the Practice Note includes his recommendation that the simple statement saying that an acceptable “out-of-ground pool wall” barrier should “comply with or exceed the prescribed dimensions and technical requirements as set out within AS1926.1 for barrier heights” be included.
“While Practice Note 17 is far from perfect, and has still to be tested ‘in the field’, it is a start,” he says.
Nonetheless, Glass intends to continue to fight to have the “illegal change of law” rescinded, in part because he says its application could be more dangerous for children. This is because it would seemingly be easier to breach a 1.2m fence in front of a 1.8m wall, and then use the fence height to scale the wall, than breach the 1.8m wall by itself.
Click here to see the practice note.
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