Howard County doesn’t have sufficient public swimming swimming pools. Residents pay the worth

Columbia’s first village pool wowed in 1968. So did its price ticket.

When a Virginia faculty director requested what the Wilde Lake pool value to construct and function, a Rouse Company govt replied that he couldn’t share the numbers in good religion.

“It is, frankly, still giving us so much more in the way of headache than satisfaction,” he wrote.

Swimming entry was central to Columbia’s deliberate design at a time when efforts to desegregate many Maryland swimming pools typically resulted in racial violence. Some Black Howard County residents traveled to Frederick to study to swim, barred from non-public swimming pools nearer to house “for whites only.”

Developer James Rouse’s 1964 proposal promised a distinct form of metropolis with Columbia: racially built-in, wealthy in recreation and self-sustaining via membership charges, not authorities funding.

But financing these swimming pools proved expensive. Records present the primary pool in Wilde Lake value 24% greater than the $375,000 the Rouse Company had budgeted. Daily admission charges for grownup residents and nonresidents ranged from $1 to $1.75, that’s $9.38 to $16.41 when adjusted for inflation.

These days, the Columbia Association is certainly one of Howard County’s largest suppliers of recreation, providing an oasis dense with 27 indoor and out of doors swimming swimming pools. Nearly 40% of affiliation memberships, which supply entry to quite a lot of services together with swimming pools, are held by folks residing exterior of Columbia.

Anyone can buy a membership, simply as Rouse promised, however, in comparison with Baltimore City’s free public swimming pools, the associated fee may appear excessive. Columbia fees as much as $19 per day for residents and $34 for nonresidents.

Efforts to get rid of Columbia’s charges by no means gained traction, primarily as a result of they’re important for repairs. Meanwhile, plans to develop public pool elsewhere in Howard County have moved at a glacial tempo.

The result’s lopsided entry to swimming throughout certainly one of Maryland’s wealthiest counties. Of all Howard County’s public facilities, swimming swimming pools and splash pads are the least accessible to residents, in accordance with a 2022 county analysis of parks and recreational offerings.

Howard County at present has just one public pool, on the Roger Carter Community Center, close to the municipal middle in Ellicott City.

The county plans to open two extra in January contained in the North Laurel Community Center. The $21 million challenge provides a contest lap pool and a warm-water leisure pool with a waterslide.

Howard County’s different roughly 230 swimming pools are non-public or semi-public akin to these at accommodations, campgrounds, well being golf equipment and house complexes.

Some pool customers have turned to websites like Swimply to hire yard swimming pools round Howard County, an unsanctioned observe that’s created issues for some neighborhoods.

Several neighborhood advocates see the imbalanced entry as proof that the county has dropped the ball on public swimming pools and “let Columbia bear the burden.”

“The county has shirked their responsibility,” mentioned Lena Kennedy, a member of the Columbia Association Board’s aquatics advisory committee.

Before becoming a member of the committee, Kennedy usually took her youngsters to the neighborhood swimming pools in Columbia. Still, she didn’t perceive how costly they’re to keep up till she obtained instantly concerned.

Columbia has spent about $7.5 million on its 23 out of doors swimming pools within the 2025 fiscal yr. The affiliation operates them at a loss to offer the utmost worth to residents and friends, Dan Burns, vice chairman of neighborhood applications and companies, mentioned in an announcement.

Including non-cash fees, affiliation monetary statements present a $4.8 million loss for aquatics in 2025.

In an announcement Howard County Executive Calvin Ball mentioned county officers are wanting into future pool places.

“Major infrastructure projects take money, time, careful planning, and community support,” Ball mentioned.

This spring, federal and state funds cuts hampered Howard County’s annual funds negotiations. The space is house to about 50,000 federal employees, many feeling the squeeze as President Donald Trump shrinks the civil service.

Ball emphasised that his administration has prioritized completion of the North Laurel pool.

Still, it took Howard County advocates nearly 40 years to get a brand new pool inbuilt North Laurel.

“I’ve lost numerous friends who were involved in the early days, who indeed did not get to see the pool built in their time,” mentioned advocate Susan Garber.

County officers first promised to construct an indoor pool on the North Laurel Community Center again in 2007, however county assets have been diverted after the 2008 market crash and subsequent recession, and later by the Ellicott City flood response.

“Obviously, a pool for enjoyment, versus trying to save Ellicott City from future floods, helping them rebuild … it was a no-brainer that it was going to be axed,” Garber mentioned.

Without a pool in Laurel, Garber is caught. She has extreme osteoporosis and restricted mobility, and her husband makes use of a wheelchair. Private pool charges have been too costly for the Savage resident, and the closest public possibility required a bus experience and switch on the Columbia mall.

Doing so in a moist bathing swimsuit? Forget it.

County Councilwoman Christiana Rigby mentioned public swimming pools are “a piece of community infrastructure we often don’t think about.”

Rigby, who represents North Laurel, mentioned the most important limitation for county swimming pools is staffing. Lifeguards and swim instructors are briefly provide virtually all over the place.

As Columbia absorbs demand from nonresidents, conflicting priorities have emerged. Residents are ageing and have extra want for senior-friendly programming, limiting choices for households and kids, Kennedy mentioned.

She remembers taking her personal youngsters to the pool at Steven’s Forest — 200 swimmers of all ages crowded into one facet of the pool whereas a handful of adults swam laps on the opposite.

Kennedy worries about accessibility, too, significantly for younger youngsters, whom she believes society has responsibility to show to swim.

In 2001, the affiliation launched a program for low-income Columbia college students to earn a free membership for themselves and their households via faculty by doing nicely on assignments, enhancing their grades or having good attendance. The program is obtainable at 21 Columbia-area colleges. Over the years, 8,000 college students have earned memberships, together with 667 final educational yr.

Kennedy known as it the “best-kept secret in Howard County.”

Residents coming to the county’s lone public pool vary from infancy via their golden years, mentioned Julija Sajuskas, supervisor on the Roger Carter Community Center.

Aquatic applications embrace swim classes for all ages, girls’s-only classes, a swim crew, child water play and adaptive swim lessons for folks with disabilities or particular wants.

Parents who participated in swimming classes on the previous Roger Carter pool now deliver their youngsters for swim class, Sajuskas mentioned.

To Kennedy, Howard County’s lack of swimming pools has successfully created a divide and fairness situation.

Swimming entry, she mentioned, is “our responsibility as a society.”