How to Zone Your Home for Assisted Living Success
Apr 07, 2025
Starting an assisted living business is exciting—but it can also be tricky! One of the biggest puzzles?
Zoning.
Zoning rules decide what kind of business can go where. And if your home isn’t zoned right, guess what?
You can’t open your assisted living home.
But don’t worry—we’ll walk you through it, step by step!
Check out the video, too:
Why Zoning Matters for Assisted Living
Zoning laws are like the city’s rulebook.
They say what buildings can be used for—like homes, schools, stores, or… assisted living!
If your property isn’t zoned for assisted living, you could:
-
Get shut down π
-
Miss out on licensing β
-
Lose time and money πΈ
That’s why checking zoning FIRST is a smart move. π§
Where to Start with Zoning
First, call your city or county zoning office.
You’ll want to talk to a city planner or zoning officer.
But here’s the secret: don’t say "assisted living"!
That makes them think of big buildings, not cozy homes. π’
Try these questions instead:
-
“Can I run a care home here?”
-
“How many unrelated people can live in this home?”
-
“What’s the zoning for this property? And what are the permitted uses?”
These questions keep things simple and help you get the information you really need. β
What If the Property Isn’t Zoned for Assisted Living?
Uh-oh! Found the perfect property—but it’s not zoned for care?
You might need to ask for rezoning. Here’s what that could look like:
π Apply – Fill out a form and submit it to the city.
π’ Public Comment – Neighbors might get a letter and be allowed to share their thoughts.
ποΈ City Council Meeting – You might need to speak and explain your plan.
π« Denied? – You can appeal, change your request, or find a new home.
It’s not always fast… but it’s possible! Just be patient and keep going. πͺ
Permits and Other Considerations
Even if the zoning is right, you might still need a few extra things:
πͺͺ Business License – Some cities require this even for unlicensed homes.
𧱠Renovation Permits – Planning to add ramps, widen doors, or update bathrooms? You’ll likely need a permit.
Call your city office and ask, “Do I need any permits to open a care home here?”
What Happens If Zoning Changes?
Let’s say the city changes the rules after you open…
The good news: You’ll probably be “grandfathered in.” That means:
β
You can keep operating under the old rules.
β But if you close or change the home, the new rules might kick in.
So, always stay up to date and protect your facility!
Tips for Talking to Zoining Officials
City workers can be super helpful—but only if you give them clear information. Here’s how:
π Be Specific – Tell them the address, what you want to do, and the number of people you’ll care for.
β Ask, Don’t Assume – They may not know how assisted living works, so explain it kindly.
π Get It in Writing – Always ask for emails or letters to confirm what they say!
Final Thoughts
Zoning might sound scary, but it doesn’t have to be!
Here’s your simple game plan:
β
Talk to your city or county early
β
Ask the right questions
β
Get your answers in writing
β
Be ready to apply for rezoning or permits if needed
With the right approach, zoning won’t slow you down—it’ll set you up for success! π
Grab your FREE Business Plan Checklist to guide your assisted living journey from day one.
Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
Let’s build something amazing together! π
Show full transcript π
Transcript
00:00:00
hey friend I'm Brandon Gustafson I help beginners like you launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months in today's video we're going to be talking about how to get your house zone for assisted living what that process looks like and how you can go about it if you need some help and some guidance in that phase of the process of launching your assistant living business stick around for today's [Music] video hey friend welcome back to Assisted Living investing excited to
00:00:28
have you here on the Channel with me today before we get started in our topic though I want to remind you to get over to the website Assisted Living investing. net to grab your free underwriting calculator to see if you have a profitable opportunity in front of you or not uh give it away for free Assisted Living investing. net go grab that and uh let's get into the topic for today's video we're going to be talking about how to Zone your property for assisted living how to make sure that it
00:00:54
is zoned properly and what that process looks like as you're getting your business up and running you want to start an assisted living business um the zoning and the certificate of occupancy that you're going to receive through that process is crucial to your ability to actually run an assisted living facility out of your home you have probably watched videos probably even ones like mine where it's like you know a two or three bed home can it be uh can it be profitable we'll link that one up
00:01:22
above or you know how many beds can you have inside of an assisted living facility all of those types of things and and you keep coming back to what about the HOA and what about the zoning we're not going to get into HOA today we have another video that we'll link up above but we will be talking about zoning and what that looks like and why it can be one of the biggest barriers to getting your Assisted Living business up off the ground and help you get moving I hear this from a lot of people that they
00:01:48
found the perfect property they have land to build on but they just can't get the zoning in place and so we want to talk about zoning why it's so important and how you can get over that hurdle to help you be successful the best place for you to start here when it comes to figuring out the zoning process is your local municipality generally this is the city sometimes it does go up to a county level but you need to be talking to somebody there often times this is somebody that's like a city planner
00:02:16
questions that you can ask them are something like can I do assisted living in this in this space now the thing you're going to run into when you ask that question is when they think assisted living and you are probably like this at one point as well you thought of assisted living as the big apartment building down the street and not the residential home and that is typically where their mind is at as well and so there's a better way to ask that question so if you ask or have asked in the past can I do assisted living here
00:02:48
and they say no that's a house and you tried to explain it but you're not getting very far you might need to reframe this question and ask it in a better way the way that I found to do this is actually to say you're you're looking at doing a care home business in the home and that's going to trigger some possibly some questions oh what is a care home what does that look like even though you might not be licensing it as a as a care home it might not be called that it's bacular that works a
00:03:18
lot better when you're talking to city planners or the people that are in charge of zoning in inside of a in a municipality the other thing that you want to do cuz this is the Crux of zoning is how many unrelated individuals can you have living in a home it's a lot more technical but you might have to get to that point where you're asking what does that look like what is the zoning in this property and how many unrelated individuals can live in that home so that's something you want to ask those
00:03:46
are the three ways that you can ask that question um I found that the last two typically work better and are going to get you a better answer to help you figure out what that looks like so once you get to that point and they tell you oh yeah you could have 12 people live there you're like sweet now I'm good to go I don't can I get that in writing basically that's what you want to do you just want to be like awesome I've got everything that I need there now if they come back to you and they tell you no
00:04:13
you can't do assisted living there you can't do a care home you can only have four unrelated individuals living in the home your next Pro step in the process is to figure out what that rezoning process is going to look like so rezoning is basically taking it so when you look at zoning typically you're going to have like like an R1 R2 and an R3 Zone the r stands for residential and then the one 123 is how many unrelated individuals can live in the home and and they step it up that's generally kind of
00:04:42
at its core that's kind of what it looks like each state and municipality has different rules for how they administer it but they often times are following that same classification R12 and three um they just interpret it differently now if you need to rezone um what you're going to look at here is it could be as simple as an application you know we just need to you just need to fill this out tell us how many people you want to live in the home and then we'll review it and and approve it or we'll review it
00:05:11
and tell you what needs to change in order for that to happen it could be that simple like it really could be just a simple application that's all you got to do or it could be so much more complex than that and it could be one of those things that goes out for public comment you know they put the billboard kind of thing in inside the yard and they say there will be public comment at a city council meeting in 2 months from now cuz this place is getting you know we there's a proposal to turn it into
00:05:38
assisted living um like it could be that complex and you got to go to the city council meeting and you've got to present to it and you have to hear the comments and and potentially respond to people's comments and concerns about turning it into assisted living and things like that so it could be that complex or they could just tell you nope there is no way that this is ever going to be rezoned and you can't do anything about it um that is a possibility uh most places will be able to work with
00:06:04
you it just could end up being a very complex process now if you go through the more complex thing it could be months before you get a reone and at that point you need to figure out for yourself do I want to go through the process of doing this or should I just go find another property um what's that going to look like and and so that's kind of how you handle those situations but that's what it's going to look like but you absolutely have to be clear on all of the questions that you ask make sure
00:06:32
there is no ambiguity that there is no confusion be as clear as you possibly can because if you are not clear it will create confusion and confusion just leads to Nos and and very little if any progress so you have to be clear in the way that you communicate to people spend time to write your email and then reread it and then reread it again and make sure that it makes sense don't use Simple languages like it and the and that be very specific the property located at this address and that property is zoned as this and the
00:07:10
property is like you want to be very proper in the way that you do things and don't use assumptive languages language at all be very specific to the point that you read it and you're say you're like man this just sounds like I'm I'm being a little over the top you kind of have to be otherwise it's going to create confusion and you will not make progress ress so I've seen I've seen so many instances where deals or opportunities fall apart because of a lack of communication and it's a lot
00:07:37
easier for somebody just say no we can't do that because they don't understand and they don't want to feel stupid about asking a question um so they just say no sorry we just can't do that they would rather say that than try to go back and forth with you and try to figure things out so just be as clear as you can it will save you time and headaches and and everything um in the future uh so just want to kind of point that out for you the next question is do you need a permit so zoning and permits they're
00:08:04
they're not the exact same thing it is possible that you will need to get some kind of a business permit to run a business whether it's a licensed or an unlicensed facility you may need to have some kind of a business permit to actually run the business um that is going to be up to the municipality so possibly if you're going to be doing major Renovations on a house you should probably permit that as well permit those renovations that you're doing on the home just in case when you go to
00:08:32
sell it or anything like that it is permitted and approved and everything falls into place it's possible you'll need permits but not in every single instance will you need a permit that is a very much a case-by case basis that you're going to see as you start working with different municipalities and different situations so just something for you to be aware of possible but not every single time now what about zoning if it changes so you're owning a property you you have the house you have the assisted living
00:09:03
facility two years later City says you know we're rezoning this area are like does that shut you down no it doesn't typically almost always I've not seen this anywhere else you get grandfathered into the zone that you the zoning classification you were in when it was initially zoned now if you were to shut down the facility and the intended use of that property changed and it was no longer used as assisted living and then you went to go try to sell it but the zoning had changed you're going to have
00:09:32
a big uphill battle to get that to work but as long as it stays with the intended use of the of the home being assisted living you will maintain that zoning um we actually ran into a little bit of this in in Colorado we were able to resolve it but it did it was a point of friction like a few years after the fact after buying the home that we we had some questions arise about zoning we had to just kind of work with the county office in this case to help figure things out so you should be grandfathered in you shouldn't have to
00:10:01
worry about zoning changes and how it will impact your business uh you get grandfathered in at the zoning uh classification that you're in so who do you talk to you're talking to a city planner that's likely the person that you're going to talk to if it's not them uh talk to them anyways and they will point you in the right direction uh to help you get started now if you found any of this to be helpful comment zoning down below I would love to to hear from you there if you have specific questions
00:10:26
about zoning or experiences that you've had with zoning com comment those down below as well uh I think people would benefit from hearing from you but also I I'll see if I can help you out as well what questions do you have specifically about zoning and experiences that you've had and and I'll see what I can do to help you out and if you need some extra guidance as you're going through this process and and just you need that structure you feel overwhelmed and confused and you just don't know how to
00:10:50
get started I would love to help you out go check out The Mastermind program Alim mastermind.com application fill out this application it takes less than 5 minutes let me see your goals where you're at and and what you need help with if the Mastermind program is a good fit from there I'll give you the information on it and and help guide you there's going to be a webinar there that kind of walks you through exactly what this looks like and how it can help you launch your Assisted Living business and if it's not
00:11:15
a good fit and now's not the right time that's totally fine too I'll give you some other resources and help you along the way I'm here to help you uh is what I love doing as much as I do the coaching for me because it's rewarding I do it for you because I want to see you succeed so if you need some help go check out The Mastermind program Alim mastermind.com application would love to see you over there to recap this video again we've been talking about zoning we've been
00:11:39
talking about how to go through the zoning process how to check if it's zoned properly if you need to rezone it what does that look like and some of these other little tiny questions that come out permits and what if zoning changes what does that look like and hopefully that gave you the information that you need to feel confident as you're moving forward and launching your Assisted Living business if you haven't already ready you found this helpful like the video subscribe and ring the
00:12:03
bell as well so you get notified every time we put out content like this do lives on Tuesdays and and videos on Thursdays all with the goal of helping you launch your Assisted Living business does residential Assisted Living sound interesting to you but you don't know how to get started at Assisted Living investing. net we're H here to help beginners like you launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months I want to thank you for watching thanks for being here and remind you that it
00:12:24
doesn't take a lot just a little bit just keep going step by step by step I promise you that if you do and you're consistent and persistent you're going to be successful thanks for watching and have a great day [Music]
Download Your FREE Calculator
Stay connected with news and updates!
Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.
Don't worry, your information will not be shared.
We hate SPAM. We will never sell your information, for any reason.