If you are concerned you should contact your local zoning commission. Better to know up front before you get into any potential trouble.

There are a lot of factors as well, including depth considerations, size etc. If it's just a small water feature 12" deep that's maybe 100 gal you are going to have less issues than an 1800 gal 30" deep pond.

Groundbeef has a good suggestion... contact your zoning or planning department. I'd also think to perhaps contact your insurance carrier, just to be safe.

I have to say, I didn't do either but I know the planning regs pretty well from my occupation. But it just didn't occur to me to check with my insurance carrier at the time, those many years ago.

Our town/city doesn't have anything specific to ponds--I did read the "pool" definition & decided to go with 2' depth instead of 3' because if it's less than 2' it's not a pool, so doesn't need fancy fences, etc.. That was the closest I came to "pond" or "water feature" in our regs--I preferred to look online because then they can't suddenly "figure out" they should be regulating ponds ;).

Megan -- I made some calls. One of the people I talked to in zoning said the same thing -- that their rules regulate swimming pools, but there's nothing about ponds!!!!!

Now all I need is about $900.00 and I can start digging!

(It'll be a while!)

:)

pah? $900?

That must be some fabled gold plated and jewel encrusted shovel, woohoo!

Well -- I am trying to budget in my head and not think I can do this for nothing. I'll need underlay padding, liner, a big pallet of rocks, a few boulders, filter, pump and hose, alterations to my outdoor electrical outlet, plants, and fish.

From what I've been able to tell, $900 is pretty realistic.

My digging is FREE! And I can't wait to get started. Someday! :)

I have a low-budget pond, bought a 200 gal or so plastic preformed pond at Home Depot or Lowes for $100, dug a hole, poured water into the pond, put 6 goldfish in ($30 to 50 or feeder fish), put a net across it. You can use rocks from the side of roads, interspersed with patio blocks at access points of the pond. Once a month I remove 1/6 of the water with a bucket and refill it with faucet water from a hose, no electricity, no filter and pump. My pond is in bright shade, not much in algae. The fish are healthy.
Good luck!

Well, I am such an overly-ambitious goober.... I have a champagne pond vision -- and a beer pond budget.

My neighbor's and my yards are divided by a 3 1/2 ft. stone wall. I want to make it look as if the water is magically flowing from the stone in the wall. I'll build a little waterfall deal up against the wall, housing and hiding the pump and such. The waterfall will go into a smallish pond that will then flow into the bigger pond.

I've been working on a dry creek (which I HAVE to finish before I can even think about digging the pond) -- this has given me a good idea of how much all my stone will cost.

We'll see if I ever get it done. In the meantime, I am having so much fun on this forum, reading about everyone's ponds!

When I was doing the original designs for my pond and waterfall I went to zoning and asked about regulations pertainig to ponds. The building inspector I was talking to told me they didn't have any regulation for ponds and they weren't inforced. Another inspecter walked up and contradicted him stating "yes we do, we inforce them as a swimming pool. He then handed me a piece of paper with the defanition of a swimming pool as: "Any enclosed body of water exceeding 100 sq ft in area or greater than 18" in depth" Pools require 6' fence, self closing /locking gate, set-backs from house, electrical, etc etc and about $600 permit. I was bummed but got suspicious and did some checking and pulled the actual code. In the copy the inspecter was quoting the rules said 100' OR 18" deep, either would qualify as a swimming pool. Given this rule, a 5 gallon bucket full of water is a swimming pool. When I pulled the actual code the rule states 100' sq ft AND 18" deep or greater. I adjusted the size of my pond from 150 sq ft in size to 97 sq feet and still kept the 36" depth. It's a pond, not a pool and exempt. Several miles away the next city has NO rules for ponds no matter how large or deep.
Check and see if your city has the zoning reulations available online and check with zoning to be sure.

This is so frustrating. No two communities have the same rules and all too often there aren't any legal requirements in place that make or encourage common sense or protect you as a pond owner. If you are going to have a pond you have to take the responsibility and liability of having what a lawyer would call an attractive nuisance. In a community where people file lawsuits that some might consider frivolous, you would need to be cautious and where children could be attracted by the pond you have to consider their safety before anything else. I've lived where a simple rope swing in the back yard sent a neighbor into hysterics. A pond would have started a war.

Have you talked to the neighbor who has a pond?

The pond was there when she bought the house. So far, my phone calls have led me to conclude that I can go for it, when the time is right. My pond won't be huge -- certainly not a pool. Also, MANY houses in the area have them -- I think I'm OK.

I'm laughing about the rope swing. One house on our way to school has a big rope with knots in it -- hanging over a drainage ditch that is lined with big giant rocks. Totally an accident waiting to happen.

Your old neighbor would have gone nuts.

I'm WAY more afraid of trampolines! :)

After seeing so many videos of incidents with trampolines, I think I agree. I've never figured out how come so many of those incidents were being filmed at the time. Hmmm.

Knowing many cities in our valley have very tuff restrictions on what you can and can't do on your own property I was concerned when we started digging our pond.

We are running the power from a guest house we have in the back yard and decided the best way was to do a complete power service up grade to the house. This will provide a breaker box outside for us to connect into.

For that we need a permit. So I went to the town hall to get the permit for the service upgrade and asked about the pond. They said nope, you only need a permit for the power running to the pond and the permit for the service upgrade covers it.

So I guess my point is always check with your city, all cities are different. And, I will always check going forward with how restrictive a town is before I purchase a home... (Probably wont ever move though) ;)

We are about a third of the way done with digging the hole (5000 gallon, 16x24 feet 36" deep), the power is being done on June 3rd.

It's a chore right now but I am sure it'll be worth it.

Check with your city and build that pond!!!