Article Courtesy of The Naples
Daily News
By Greg Stanley
Published April 13, 2016
A handful of neighbors start rolling up Wilson Ospina's
driveway each day in the late afternoon, after work lets out.
Some arrive by foot, others by minivan. Silently they get to work, pulling out
rowing machines from Ospina's two car garage — a garage that's been turned into
the dream weight room of the soft-spoken retired Navy corpsman, neatly organized
with kettle bells, free weights, pullup bars and charts.
For the last three months
Ospina has been organizing intense one-hour workouts out of his
garage for his neighbors in Maple Ridge, one of the largest and
fastest growing communities in Ave Maria.
Then the homeowners association told him to stop.
In late March, Miami Management Inc., which runs the homeowners
association on behalf of the development, threatened to sue
Ospina if he continued to host the workouts, pointing to
covenant agreements that are so common among neighborhoods and
communities in the Naples area.
The broad violation Ospina was accused of violating could be
found in any number of HOA agreements in the area: "No owner
shall make or permit any loud and/or disturbing noises of a
continuing nature, nor any practice that is the source of
annoyance to residents."
But the workouts never get louder than the occasional grunts and
heavy breathing, Ospina said. The only annoyance seems to be the
sight of a group of adults exercising on a driveway, he said. |
|
Wilson Ospina, right, assists Victor Velasquez, 18,
during a daily CrossFit workout with neighbors in his Ave Maria home on
Monday, April 5, 2016. Ospina has been hosting group CrossFit workouts
in his home since January.
|
"It just seems very absurd," Ospina said. "Am I not able to workout in my own
garage? What are they shutting down, a group of neighbors gathering?"
Ospina runs three workouts daily, one at 6 a.m., and again around 4:30 and 5:30
p.m. The size of the groups range from two to eight people.
Ospina, 34, retired young from the Navy because of a head injury. He's a Naples
High School graduate and served in Iraq and Afghanistan working as a combat
medic among other duties. He was in charge of leading the physical training of
his platoon for a stint and took to it.
When Ospina returned to Florida he used the GI Bill to study community health at
Florida Gulf Coast University and plans to become a full-time trainer. Within
the next 6 to 7 months he and a partner will open Ave Maria's first CrossFit
gym, an increasingly popular fitness program that blends a number of different
disciplines like rowing, lifting and running.
But he and friends will always work out in his own home, he said.
"This is huge for me," Ospina said. "I've been at war pretty much since I was
20. This is my purpose now. It helps people. It gets them to have an active
lifestyle. With all of our problems with high blood pressure and diabetes, well
this does something about it. If this bothers people, then so be it."
The first HOA complaint came in a February email from Miami Management, asking
that he stop playing music from his garage during the workouts. Ospina killed
the radio, thinking it would settle matters.
A few weeks later he received another complaint saying that he was operating a
business at his home, a violation of the HOA agreements and county codes. But
the workouts are free. No money is changing hands and there's no added traffic
to the street since everyone lives in the neighborhood, Ospina said.
It's like having a pickup basketball game in the driveway, open to anyone who
wants to walk over, he said.
But the bottom line is the activity is bothering people, Miami Management
representatives told Ospina.
When he asked what decibel level of noise he was allowed to make in his home,
one manager from the HOA responded in an email, "The decibel is whatever annoys
or creates a nuisance for the neighbors."
"So if a neighbor is annoyed by blue shirts, am I not allowed to wear a blue
shirt on my driveway?" Ospina said. "Are they going to dictate what pace I can
run on the sidewalk?"
Eric Jacques, who lives a few doors down from Ospina, has been working out with
him since January.
"Wilson is an absolute asset," Jacques said. "I moved here because it's a
younger community where families can get together like this. I would not have
moved here if it was a place where neighbors communicated to each other through
nasty letters to the HOA."
After questions from the Naples Daily News, the HOA worked out an agreement with
Ospina. He won't host any workouts before 8 a.m. and will limit the size to
eight people.
"It's my understanding the neighbors were mostly complaining about it happening
before 8 a.m.," said Andrea McLendon, with Ave Maria Development. "The HOA spoke
with Mr. Ospina and they were able to come to an amicable agreement." |