Columbus Council Hearing on Retention Pond Safety Set Oct. 22
Council President Pro Tem Rob Dorans wants feedback on new rules that would build on the 2024 pond ordinance.
Columbus City Council will take public testimony on retention pond safety at 1 p.m. Thursday, October 22, in Council Chambers at City Hall, 90 W. Broad St. The hearing notice, filed as PN0402-2026 for the City Bulletin, says President Pro Tem Rob Dorans will review proposed safety measures meant to build on the pond rules Council adopted in 2024.
Those earlier rules came from Ordinance 3439-2024, which Dorans sponsored. It created a housing code category for multi-unit residential ponds, meaning artificial water on apartment and condo property, stormwater retention ponds included. Natural water and small decorative features such as koi ponds are excluded. Owners must post drowning warning signs, keep approved flotation devices near the water, and give residents a yearly written notice about the danger and the pond's safety features. Those three duties began July 1, 2025. Ponds built after the law took effect also need a submerged safety shelf, a shallow sloped ledge at the edge that keeps a person who slips in from dropping straight into deep water.
The 2024 law also lets Building and Zoning Services declare a pond a public nuisance after injuries or deaths there, and it requires the Departments of Public Safety and Neighborhoods, along with Columbus Public Health, to report any such incident to BZS within 14 days. In the legislation, Council wrote that several dozen young children had drowned in open water in Columbus over the previous decade, and that accidental drowning ranked fourth among external causes of injury or death for Franklin County children ages 1 to 13. The Columbus Dispatch reported earlier this month that recent toddler drownings have renewed scrutiny of the ponds.
Residents can weigh in two ways. Written testimony goes by email to Andie McDonald in Dorans' office at ABMcDonald@columbus.gov by 10 a.m. on the hearing day, with "Written Testimony" in the subject line. Anyone who wants to speak in person should email the same address by the same deadline, and each speaker gets three minutes. The session will stream live on CTV, YouTube, and Facebook.
If your apartment complex has a pond, this is the hearing that could change what your landlord must install. Other Council business is in the City feed, including the home energy repair program, and the Downtown page covers the blocks around City Hall.
