Neighbors sweat while awaiting pool fence installation

0 Comments | New Haven Register, Jun 22, 2010 | by Randall Beach

By Randall Beach Register Staff rbeach@newhavenregister.com

NEW HAVEN — After about a year of complaints from neighbors, a city zoning officer’s order and the filing of a court complaint by the city, attorney Robert Ghent still has not put up a protective fence around his in-ground backyard swimming pool.

Ghent, who has an office in Waterbury, says he has ordered the fence, but the fence supplier has been slow in producing the structure.

The lack of fencing has neighbors worried about safety because, they say, children or pets could wander into the pool, but city officials appear willing to go with Ghent’s good faith efforts for now.

The pool is located at 42 McKinley Ave. in the Westville neighborhood, where houses are located fairly close to one another. The pool is easily visible and accessible from the sidewalk.

Neighbors have been complaining about the danger of the pool for the past year on the website SeeClickFix. Journal Register Co.’s 18 daily newspapers and online publications, including the New Haven Register, are partnering with SeeClickFix in the communities they serve. The Register site is: www.nhregister.com/seeclickfix/.

> The lead comment on the pool states: “This house has an in- ground pool but they took out the fence a few years ago and did not replace it. This is a danger for neighborhood children and pets.”

Follow-up comments show that over a series of many months, the complaints reported the problem to the city’s Livable City Initiative and the New Haven Building Department.

After neighbors learned the city’s Office of Corporation Counsel had filed the verified complaint against Ghent April 20, one of the residents commented, also on SeeClickFix, “A pending issue with the Corporation Counsel’s office is not good enough
inground pool