After months of deliberation, the Santa Monica (CA) City Council has approved a plan to regulate commercial fitness training at the city's parks and beaches, a plan that has upset some local fitness professionals.
The plan, which was approved last week and goes into effect in January, calls for a one-year pilot program establishing four commercial fitness zones and restricting noise, the equipment that can be used, class sizes and the number of permits issued per park.
Palisades Park, the city's most popular destination for outdoor classes, has been at the center of the regulation discussion, which began after community members and city staff raised concerns about trainers profiting from city land and causing damage to the park. Some city council members and community members suggested that Palisades Park be added to a list of parks where training is prohibited, according to city documents and meeting footage, but the new plan allows trainers to use the park every day except Sunday.
The results of the pilot program will be revaluated in 2015, and the city council will decide whether changes need to be made.
Although trainers will still be able to offer classes at Palisades Park, the fee they will have to pay has drawn criticism from the Santa Monica Outdoor Fitness Coalition (SMOFC), a group of local fitness professionals. After working with the city for more than a year to develop what they thought was a fair plan, coalition members were surprised when council members changed how fees will be collected, approving a flat fee structure instead of the revenue-based structure that had been discussed and recommended, the SMOFC wrote in a letter to the editor published in the Santa Monica Mirror.
The approved annual fees for 2014 are: $1,800 for one-on-one or one-on-two training; $3,600 for small group training (3-10 people); and $5,400 for large group training (10-15 people).
For trainers using Palisades Park, the fee increases by 50 percent, which will present a serious problem for trainers in the area, according to the group.
"This 50 percent increase applied to a flat fee amounts to a backdoor ban on group training in Palisades," the letter said. "The average trainer makes $40,000 annually. Using the percentage of gross revenues fee structure proposed by staff, 15 percent of that revenue would amount to a use fee of $6,000 to train groups in Palisades. For that same trainer, the flat-fee structure would require a fee of $8,100 – more than 20 percent of a small business' annual revenues. This percentage is higher than was ever suggested by council or staff and makes group training in Palisades completely out of reach except among the wealthy."
Raisa Lilling, a member of the SMOFC and the owner of Fit4Mom Santa Monica, says that she is one of many business owners that will suffer because they cannot afford to pay the fee for Palisades Park, where she has taught Stroller Strides classes for the past six years. Although she offers classes at several other locations, it will be more difficult for her clients to attend those classes because Palisades Park was within walking distance of their homes.
"As a business owner, of course I can find other ways to do my business and I can have my classes at other places," Lilling says. "But as a mom whose clients are moms, knowing how important it is for so many of my clients, it was really tough."