Does Martinsburg's stormwater fee apply to a pool deck?

Yes. The city's Stormwater Utility bills monthly based on impervious surface, and its definition is broad enough to include pool-deck material like concrete and pavers. One Equivalent Residential Unit, 2,280 square feet of impervious area, costs a set monthly fee.

What counts as a "swimming pool" under Martinsburg's code?

Any structure holding water more than 24 inches deep, a definition broad enough to include hot tubs and spas alongside in-ground and above-ground pools.

Fiberglass Pool Installation in Martinsburg, WV

Martinsburg is the seat of Berkeley County and the largest city in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle — and unlike most of the county around it, Martinsburg is incorporated with its own zoning code, its own building department, and its own permitting process for a pool project. This page covers what’s specific to the City of Martinsburg, separate from the county-wide rules on our Berkeley County page — that page’s karst/sinkhole disclosure rules and county permit process still apply if you’re outside city limits.

A pool can raise your monthly stormwater bill — a real, sourced number

Martinsburg’s zoning code defines “Impervious Cover” broadly enough to include concrete, pavers, and other hard pool-deck material, and the city runs its own Stormwater Utility (effective January 2022) that bills every property monthly based on how much impervious surface it has. One Equivalent Residential Unit — 2,280 square feet of impervious area — costs $12 a month, with a half-unit minimum of $6. A new pool with a poured patio around it can genuinely push a property into a higher billing tier, a recurring monthly cost that a county well-and-septic property outside city limits never encounters. It’s worth sizing your deck with this in mind, not just the setback lines.

Excavation itself can trigger a separate cost, too: the city’s building permit fee schedule includes a standalone grading plan-review fee for any project disturbing more than 1,000 square feet — a threshold an average pool excavation, with equipment access and spoil piles included, can cross even for a modest shell.

Fiberglass pool shell staged in a residential backyard before being set into the excavation — Sizing the deck and staging area up front avoids surprises later — both in the permit process and on the monthly utility bill.

What the city’s zoning code actually says about pools

Martinsburg’s zoning ordinance addresses swimming pools directly (Sec. 1329.14): a pool must sit within the principal side- and rear-yard setbacks, the same as any other accessory structure, and must be built to the city’s adopted Building Code. There’s one useful exception — a contiguous pool patio made of concrete, pavers, brick or similar hard material, flush with the surrounding grade, is not required to meet those setbacks the way the pool itself is. The code’s own definition of “swimming pool” is broad: any structure holding water more than 24 inches deep, which explicitly sweeps in hot tubs and spas alongside in-ground and above-ground pools.

Most of the city’s residential land falls into Urban Residential (UR) or Suburban Residential (SR) districts, each with its own lot-size and coverage rules. The SR-1 district — generally the largest suburban lots, minimum 9,600 square feet — caps impervious coverage at 40% of the lot, tighter than the other residential districts. On a lot near that size, a pool plus a sizeable patio can approach that cap faster than it would on a more permissive district, which is worth checking before finalizing a deck size.

City water, not a well — and a form worth asking about

Martinsburg operates its own water and wastewater system — two filtration plants and a 3.0 MGD treatment plant on East John Street — separate from Berkeley County’s rural well-and-septic areas and from the county’s own public service water district (the two systems are physically interconnected at several points, but administered separately). A pool fill inside city limits draws on metered municipal water rather than a private well, which sidesteps the well-and-septic separation-distance questions that matter on county land. The city also lists a Pool Adjustment Form with its water and sewer department, which is worth asking about directly — it’s the kind of thing that can affect what you’re billed for water used to fill a pool that never reaches the sewer system, but the exact terms are best confirmed with the city rather than assumed.

Tuscarora Creek and the riparian buffer

If your lot borders Tuscarora Creek or another mapped watercourse inside city limits, Martinsburg’s code requires an undisturbed, vegetated riparian buffer along it — no new lawn, no clearing, and any already-disturbed ground within the buffer has to be seeded with native or naturalized grass. The city’s own formula for how much of a lot is actually buildable subtracts riparian buffers, floodplain area, and sinkholes from the total before anything else is calculated — a more specific, numbers-driven version of the general karst caution we cover on the Berkeley County page. If your property backs onto a creek, that buffer — not just the pool’s own setback — is often what actually decides where a pool can go.

Historic preservation: the trigger is “exposed to public view,” not the pool itself

Martinsburg’s Downtown Historic Overlay District has carried a local preservation ordinance since 1982, enforced by a nine-member Historic Preservation Review Commission that can take up to 45 days to act. The review requirement is written specifically around anything “exposed to public view” — buildings, fences, walls, and similar fixtures. A backyard pool that isn’t visible from the street may not trigger review at all, but the safety fence required around it, if visible from a public right-of-way, likely will — a distinction worth knowing before you assume a pool project inside the historic overlay is automatically a bigger undertaking than it is.

Easements and utility lines

The city’s own guidance is direct: dig in a utility, drainage, or stormwater easement without calling Miss Utility first, and the utility holder can remove whatever you built there — fence, shed, or otherwise — without notice or compensation. Fences and walls are also barred outright from right-of-way, drainage, and stormwater-management easements under the zoning code. A current survey before you finalize a pool or fence location is genuinely worth the cost here, not just a formality.

Getting your permit through the city, not the county

Inside Martinsburg’s corporate limits, pool permitting runs through the city’s own Planning, Zoning & Building Department at City Hall, not Berkeley County’s office. Applications go through the city’s online MGO Connect portal or in person, and typically need a current survey or site plan showing the proposed pool relative to your property lines and any easements. Because a fiberglass pool installation routinely exceeds $5,000 in project value, your contractor will generally need a West Virginia Contractor’s License in addition to standard state and city business licenses. Building without a permit carries a real penalty — double the fee if you obtain one within 48 hours of a violation notice, triple after that.

The soils under Martinsburg

NRCS’s Berkeley County survey maps Hagerstown soil, alone or mixed with Urban land or Opequon, across much of the City of Martinsburg. Hagerstown is deep and well drained, formed over hard limestone that its series description places 40 to 84 inches or more down. Other units on the same map behave very differently.

Opequon is 12 to 20 inches to bedrock, and its series description rates shrink-swell as high. NRCS puts it at about 20 percent of the Hagerstown-Opequon-Rock outcrop complex, with rock outcrop at another 15 percent.
Carbo is 20 to 40 inches to limestone and has very plastic clay. NRCS rates it very limited for shallow excavations and for dwellings without basements, citing depth to bedrock, clay and shrink-swell.
Dunning and Funkstown are the wet soils. NRCS lists ponding, a shallow saturated zone and flooding for both.

NRCS does not rate soils for pools. As professional practice, a one-piece shell wants a base that behaves the same across its whole footprint. Soil at one end and rock at the other, or clay that swells and shrinks, changes how that base is prepared. Look up your parcel in Web Soil Survey and ask for a site assessment before a shell model is chosen.

Sinkhole mapping around Martinsburg

A 2025 statewide sinkhole inventory from West Virginia University’s GIS Technical Center, funded by NRCS, lists 85,991 sinkhole features statewide, found mainly from lidar and aerial photos.

The project’s final report states its limits. Features were found from lidar and aerial photos, field validation has been difficult, and small or shallow-edged sinkholes were hard to detect. It lists tree falls and artificial depressions, such as those left by road work, as sources of false positives. A lot with no mapped feature is not cleared, and a mapped feature is not a confirmed sinkhole.

The city’s buildable-area formula, covered above, already subtracts sinkholes. Ask the Planning, Zoning & Building Department how it treats a mapped feature on your lot, and ask a geotechnical engineer what the excavation is likely to meet.

Flood mapping and the floodway rules

FEMA’s Community Status Book lists the City of Martinsburg (community 540006) as a National Flood Insurance Program participant, with a current effective flood map dated July 7, 2009.

Federal program rules treat a pool project as development. The definition in 44 CFR 59.1 names filling, grading, paving and excavation. Under 44 CFR 60.3, a participating community must require permits for development in mapped Zone A and AE areas. Where a floodway is adopted, it must prohibit fill, new construction and other development there unless an engineering analysis shows no increase in base flood levels.

The riparian buffer above is a separate check from flood mapping. Ask the Planning, Zoning & Building Department whether your parcel touches the mapped floodway or a Zone AE area, and have your surveyor show it on the survey.

Taking out an old pool inside Martinsburg city limits

The City of Martinsburg’s Planning Department FAQ lists swimming pools among the accessory structures that need a building permit, and says Planning staff review is required for any application involving a demolition permit. It also says to contact the Planning Department before demolishing an existing accessory structure you are replacing. If the old structure does not conform to today’s rules, such as one already inside a setback or larger than the maximum allowed, proof of its existing footprint may be required to rebuild in the same place or at the same size. For a pool replacement in the same spot, that is worth asking about first. The FAQ also notes that state law requires an asbestos inspection before any demolition or renovation project, so ask whether that applies to a pool.

The city’s stormwater page asks residents to let pool water stand until it no longer contains chlorine and other pool cleaners before draining it. It does not give a number. Combined with the easement and stormwater points above, that is a reason to settle where the water will run before the old pool is emptied. Our guides to partial vs full pool removal and backfill and compaction list what to ask about the structure itself.

A sensible order of operations

Confirm your property is actually inside Martinsburg’s city limits, not an unincorporated county parcel with a Martinsburg mailing address — it changes which office and code apply.
Check your zoning district (UR or SR) and its impervious-coverage cap against your planned pool and patio size.
If your lot borders Tuscarora Creek or another mapped watercourse, confirm the riparian buffer distance before settling on a pool location.
Get a current survey showing your property lines and any utility, drainage, or stormwater easements.
Ask the city about the Pool Adjustment Form for your water bill, and how a new pool and patio affect your stormwater utility tier.
If you’re in the Downtown Historic Overlay, find out whether your planned fence or enclosure is visible from a public right-of-way.
Then apply for your building permit through the city’s Planning, Zoning & Building Department and choose a shell model that fits the envelope you’ve actually confirmed.

Doing it in that order costs nothing. Skipping the survey or the buffer check is how a project gets redesigned mid-excavation.

What Calm Water Pools does in Martinsburg

We’re a family-owned fiberglass pool company based in Clarksburg, MD, working across Maryland, Washington D.C., Northern Virginia and the nearby West Virginia Eastern Panhandle. We also work with a second installer based right in Shepherdstown, WV, which gives us close, local reach across the Eastern Panhandle — Martinsburg and Berkeley County are among our primary WV markets. Here we offer full fiberglass pool installation, managing the project from shell selection through a finished pool and coordinating the build with licensed independent contractors; pool removal and replacement for aging concrete, vinyl-liner or damaged fiberglass pools; and fiberglass pool shells supplied on their own to homeowners, builders and contractors running their own installations. We also supply inground winter safety covers.

If you’re trying to work out whether a Martinsburg property — inside city limits or just outside them — is a good fit for a pool, that’s worth a conversation before you’ve picked anything out. Call 240-372-4440 or request a free quote.

Zoning codes, utility rates, permit fees and historic-district boundaries change, and which office’s rules apply to your address depends on exactly where your property sits relative to the city limits. Everything above reflects our understanding of City of Martinsburg and Berkeley County requirements at the time of writing and is general guidance, not a substitute for confirming the current rules for your specific property with the City of Martinsburg Planning, Zoning & Building Department.