Zoning and Planning

[Chris Wyant]

I had to go through the same issue. However, it was a little bit of a blindside for me. The space that I took over used to be a "Little Gym," ie. a toddlers gymnastics gym. My issue is that my facility is called "SoNo Athletic Club." Pretty hard to get around calling it a school or anything but a gym. With that being said, I thought going from a gym to a gym should not be an issue right?

Wrong.

Little Gym got around zoning by having a small clothing retail portion at the front of their facility and in the application said the gym portion was a day care for their retail operation (the clothing rack was 3 feet wide).

Thus I had to go in and meet with Town Hall, get a variance, find parking spaces (4000sq ft and they wanted 36... we were given 4), and prove that we would be a benefit to the community. This process took me 2.5 months.

Depending on the name of your company, how you structure it, etc- could all help. If anything, make your parent company one name and apply under that moniker (ie. John's Hangout or Elements or something like that) and get a DBA as Crossfit Where ever after zoning is permitted for your facility. Suggesting it is a head quarters, has offices for you and your employees, offers retail products, etc. Look into the codes and hopefully that helps out.

[Jeremy R Johnson]

I noticed that in the initial post that Lamarr hoped to be considered a school, yet the description has no info regarding that.

I got started at my home, then ran into problems with the county zoning. I can only have a single client at a time. Fortunately, a local martial artist ran into the same problem. We will be sharing space in a nearby facility he had already had inspected for a martial arts studio. The business license allows for martial arts instruction, courses, and seminars. Adding "fitness" classes to the normal martial arts instruction is not a problem.

I also have a long-standing relationship with a former state legislator who has connections with the city and county government. This made things much easier, as he knows the correct person to address these issues. This made a HUGE difference.

[Benjamin Goodale]

How about taking the approach that it is a research facility studying exercise physiology in which the athletes are the subject of scientific study?

[Katherine Derbyshire]

Originally Posted by Benjamin Goodale

How about taking the approach that it is a research facility studying exercise physiology in which the athletes are the subject of scientific study?

Sounds risky to me. I can see all kinds of potential licensing nightmares for a facility that does research on humans.

Katherine

[Camille Lore]

Commercial Zoning Officer here... I wouldn't go there simply becuase it will be obvious that it's a CrossFit gym (signage and all), and then you'll have to apply as such. Don't irritate the local authorities by trying to obviously deceive them.