Strata GovernanceJuly 9, 2026 · 6 min read

Can Your Strata Close the Pool or Gym in BC?

In a small BC building, can your council really close the pool or gym? When a strata can shut or restrict shared amenities, and what owners can do about it.

You walk down to the amenity room on a Saturday morning, towel over your shoulder, and there it is: a laminated sign taped to the glass. "Pool closed until further notice." No date, no explanation, just a decision made somewhere you weren't. In a small building, that pool or gym might be one of the reasons you bought in the first place, so it's fair to ask the obvious question: can they actually do that?

The short answer is usually yes, a council can close or restrict a shared amenity. But their authority has limits, the reasons matter, and you have more say than a taped-up sign suggests. Here's how it works under BC's strata framework.

This article is general information for BC strata owners and councils, not legal advice. Bylaws, rules, and the law change, so confirm the specifics for your building with a strata lawyer or the Civil Resolution Tribunal.

Who actually controls the pool and gym?

Almost every shared amenity, the pool, the gym, the party room, the guest suite, the rooftop patio, is common property. No single owner owns it; the strata corporation does, on behalf of everyone. Some amenities are limited common property, reserved for certain units, but the ownership principle is the same. If you're not sure which is which in your building, it's worth understanding the difference between common and limited common property.

Because it's common property, the day-to-day decisions fall to the strata council, who administer the corporation between general meetings. The council has a legal duty to maintain and repair common property and a broad responsibility to manage it in everyone's interest. That's where the power to close or restrict an amenity comes from. It flows out of the council's maintenance and management role, not from any one person's preference.

So the honest framing is this: the council doesn't need your permission to make an operational call about common property. But "operational" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and it's the line that decides everything.

When a council can close an amenity on its own

There's a whole category of closures a council can order without a vote, because they're part of running the building responsibly. Common legitimate reasons include:

Safety and repairs. A cracked pool tank, a failed pump, an overheating sauna, gym equipment that's become a liability. Councils not only can close these, they arguably must until the hazard is dealt with.
Insurance requirements. Insurers increasingly attach conditions to amenities. If coverage depends on a closure, a lifeguard, or a fix, the council has little room to argue.
Health or regulatory orders. Pools and hot tubs are regulated for water quality and safety. A health authority order, a failed inspection, or new provincial requirements can force a shutdown overnight.
Legal compliance. If using the space would put the strata offside a regulation, closing it is the conservative call.

These closures are usually temporary and tied to a fixable problem. The test most councils, and the Civil Resolution Tribunal, apply is whether the closure is reasonable and genuinely connected to protecting the building, not whether every owner agrees with it. A six-week closure to fix a leaking pool is a very different animal from a closure "indefinitely" with no plan to reopen.

When closing an amenity crosses the line

Here's where owners get their say back. Temporarily closing a pool to fix it is management. Permanently removing it, converting the space to something else, or draining it and walking away is a significant change to the use or appearance of common property, and that generally needs the owners' approval, typically by a 3/4 vote at a general meeting, not a council decision alone.

The grey zone in the middle is where most small-building fights happen. A council that quietly lets an amenity sit closed year after year, or that stops maintaining it because it's expensive, may be making a permanent change through the back door. Cost pressure is real, and in a small strata an underused pool can be a genuine budget problem. But the fix for that is a transparent conversation and a vote, not an indefinite "closed" sign left to do the deciding.

Rules, hours, and restrictions short of closing

Between "open" and "closed" sits a whole spectrum of restrictions: gym hours, pool age limits, guest caps, a booking system for the party room, a ban on glass in the pool area. Most of these are rules, and a council can make rules about the use of common property on its own, with guardrails. Rules must be reasonable, they have to be communicated to owners, and they're meant to be ratified by the owners at the next general meeting. A rule that isn't reasonable, or that conflicts with a bylaw, may not hold up. This is exactly the rules-versus-bylaws distinction that trips people up.

If a restriction feels arbitrary, a pool closed to kids entirely, a gym locked after 8 p.m. with no reason given, it's fair to ask the council to point to the rule, show it was properly adopted, and explain the reasoning behind it.

What you can do as an owner

You are not stuck with a taped-up sign. In roughly the order most owners should try:

Ask, in writing. Request the reason for the closure, the plan and timeline to reopen, and the decision or rule it's based on. Councils are required to record their decisions in the minutes, so ask for the relevant minutes too.
Request a hearing. You have the right to be heard by council at a hearing, a formal chance to make your case in person and get a response.
Rally owners and call an SGM. If enough owners agree, you can force a special general meeting to put the amenity to a vote, for example to direct that it reopen or be properly repaired. Here's how owners can call an SGM.
Go to the Civil Resolution Tribunal. If the council is acting unreasonably or beyond its authority, the CRT handles most BC strata disputes without a lawyer. Knowing your rights as an owner first will make that a much stronger case.

Throughout, keep it factual and paper-trailed. The owners who get amenities reopened are usually the ones who asked precise questions in writing, not the ones who argued loudest at the mailbox.

The small-building money reality

In a building under 150 units, Onehive's whole world, amenities are a real line on a small budget. A pool can quietly eat a large share of the operating fund, and a major repair can trigger a special levy that lands hard on a handful of owners. That financial pressure is often the unspoken reason behind a closure. The healthy version of that conversation happens in the open, at the budget meeting and the AGM, with real numbers, so owners can decide together whether to keep, fix, or retire an amenity. The unhealthy version is a permanent closure dressed up as a temporary one. As managers, our job is usually to keep that decision honest, documented, and voted on, not made by default.

Frequently asked questions

Can a strata council close the pool without telling owners why? They can make the operational call, but they shouldn't leave owners in the dark. Council decisions are supposed to be recorded in the minutes, and owners can ask for the reason, the timeline, and the rule behind a closure. A flat refusal to explain is itself a red flag worth pursuing.

Can our strata permanently get rid of an amenity to save money? Usually not by council decision alone. Permanently removing or repurposing common property is generally a significant change that needs owner approval, typically a 3/4 vote at a general meeting. Cost is a legitimate reason to have that conversation, but it has to be the owners' decision, not a quiet council one.

How long can a "temporary" closure last? There's no magic number, but the closure has to stay reasonable and connected to a genuine problem. A months-long repair can be perfectly fine; an indefinite closure with no plan to reopen starts to look like a permanent change made without a vote, which owners can challenge.

Who pays to fix a broken amenity? The strata corporation does, as common property, through the operating budget, the contingency reserve fund, or a special levy for a big-ticket repair. That's exactly why the reopen-or-retire decision belongs to the owners.

What if the council just won't reopen it? Escalate in order: a written request, a formal hearing, then rallying owners to call an SGM and vote. If that fails and the council is acting unreasonably, the Civil Resolution Tribunal can step in.