OpenStreetMap
objects in private gardens
Posted by Jan Prazak on 27 March 2025 in English. Last updated on 7 April 2025.Objects in private gardens which are of no public interest such as movable objects (like small swimming pools), should NOT be entered into any public maps! They add nothing to the quality and usefulness of a map, I consider it a map data spam.
I may sometimes remove such objects from the Frýdlant region, especially if not mapped correctly (make sure private swimming pools are marked as private to not interfere with searching for nearby swimming pools).
Discussion
Comment from Friendly_Ghost on 28 March 2025 at 05:35
I support this sentiment. If I map a private pool at all, I always check if it’s one of those fixed pools that are built in the ground. Movable private pools are out of scope for OSM.
Comment from kwiatek_123 on 28 March 2025 at 08:51
Movable object should not be mapped, right. But you shouldn’t delete fixed pools just because they have missing tag. You can add access=private instead.
Comment from nickjohnston on 28 March 2025 at 08:58
I’m in favour of mapping permanent/fixed pools (with access=private). It’s a useful way of gauging the affluence of an area. Also, in some places I think public health authorities have used OpenStreetMap data to identify private swimming pools to inspect for mosquito breeding.
Comment from Jan Prazak on 28 March 2025 at 12:54
Let me explain the background why I wrote my post. There’s been a highly active mapper who apparently added small private swimming pools just for fun to the area which I take care of. It’s been just chaotic, where he mapped like 5% but left out the most. None of them were marked with access=private. And now a few years later it’s clear that it is utter nonsense to map such pools, a high number of those pools is gone (according to aerial maps), which doesn’t surprise me. It’s just more work for me as a mapper to fix it. It’s simply nonsense. BTW mosquitos cannot breed there because of chlorine.
Comment from Jan Prazak on 28 March 2025 at 12:56
And yes, I fixed some of them with access=private, but I am strongly against adding more of those round small pools in private gardens, it doesn’t make any sense. We don’t add garden furniture either :-D
Comment from flohoff on 6 April 2025 at 19:44
The point is not “build permission” but movable/non permanent structures like small plastik pools.
Sheds are perfectly okay to map and i would consider removing them as vandalism. Removing perfectly valid objects which do exist by fact have a valid point beeing in OSM.
Comment from Tomas_J on 6 April 2025 at 20:40
Hi, how do you asses out of the aerial imagery if the pool is permanent or moveable?
For the context: I map the private permanent garden pools in Slovakia regularly. It could be a good indicator of e.g. water consumption during dry summer months or it could easily show richer areas with people who can afford a private pool. I read an article where such pool data (not from osm) were used by an marketing agency to offer grocery delivery service.
Comment from flohoff on 7 April 2025 at 05:27
If you are only mapping from the Aerial you better not delete anything you are not 100% certain.
This is why i strategically take Mapillary Fotos of the Areas i am mapping. In 10 years i took photos of 6300km of Streetview like imagery with ~1 Mio images.
So whenever there is something uncertain i can go back to imagery.
I now started going back to areas i was in 2014/2015 and update imagery with 360° imagery.
Comment from Jan Prazak on 7 April 2025 at 08:53
Sorry, but this is not a reason to do any mapping, to support unwanted commercial advertisement of any kind. I’m sure if a marketing agency wanted to make use of such data, they would certainly check aerial imagery, not an unreliable map like OSM.
BTW I do map permanent pools, you can very easily see from aerial view if such a pool is on earth level because they don’t throw a shadow and often they have a border around to walk on. We have very high quality aerial maps here in CZ.
If anyone wants to map moveable pools in private gardens, then he/she should also map trees in gardens since they are far more permanent. Whenever I map something I ask myself a question: does it serve the public or not, might it be of interest to the public or not. We could also talk about mapping of sandboxes (for children) or flower beds in private gardens.
I agree. I don’t remove existing sheds unless I see that it disappeared from newest aerial maps. I will rewrite my original post to be more clear on this.
Good idea (unless history of aerial maps is archived and publicly accessible).
Comment from Tomas_J on 7 April 2025 at 09:31
Btw: I saw one more similar issue in the Czech gardens: tagging the private sheds as amenity=shelter. It makes a mess on the hiking maps then, because many of them show them as an infrastructure for the tourist.
Comment from Tomas_J on 7 April 2025 at 09:38
…I am sending again with better formating :)
Good point. I used the pool shape and tiles around the pool criteria to find out the permanent pools; the shadow (not) casting is another good clue.
The data were from Facebook to explain how personalized marketing works :), but I can imagine that kind of analysis even from a gis data.
Btw: I saw one more similar issue in the Czech gardens: tagging the private sheds as amenity=shelter. It makes a mess on the hiking maps then, because many of them show them as an infrastructure for the tourist.
Comment from Jan Prazak on 7 April 2025 at 15:23
That’s also interesting. Sometimes it’s really better not to add an object at all if people don’t check all its necessary properties or tags. I made such a mistake when adding a parcel box for the first time, I should have checked other parcel boxes first, but luckily it was not a serious issue, it was just missing one important tag to be recognizable by search engine.
Comment from skfd on 7 April 2025 at 17:41
I like mapping sculptures I see in front yards, if they are made out of bronze and of decent size.