In the summer
of 2003, Jim Deichstetter applied for a building permit to install
solar panels on his property in Los Gatos, Calif., a residential
community in the San Francisco Bay Area. Just to get a planning
review, Deichstetter had to fork over $3,000. A few months later,
the planning commission told Deichstetter that his plan did not
conform to the town’s design guidelines and that the solar
panels would have to be positioned in a way that would put them in
the shadow of his neighbor’s house. That would have meant a
significant productivity loss, so Deichstetter gave up his solar
dreams. “The town felt that aesthetically speaking, having
these solar panels was an eyesore,” he says.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, the Los Gatos Planning
Department ordered the owner of a local solar power company, Akeena
Solar, to remove or cover up 18 solar panels installed on the
company’s office roof because three were visible from the
street.
As solar panels pop up on rooftops throughout the
West, the hunger to go green increasingly conflicts with land-use
regulations, zoning laws and design guidelines that may have been
decades in the making. That has forced planners to attempt to
reconcile the often-opposing values of efficiency and aesthetics
— to somehow balance a shiny black photovoltaic array, for
example, with the architectural guidelines in a Victorian historic
district.
In Los Gatos, Akeena Solar sued the city and
began pushing for a new law. Ultimately, the state stepped in on
the side of solar and passed legislation prohibiting local
governments from denying solar energy permits on the basis of
aesthetics alone. Since the law went into effect in January 2005,
most California cities have modified their zoning regulations to
exempt solar panels from the design review process, and
they’ve lowered and evened out permitting costs.
“It’s so much easier now,” says Kurt Newick,
chairman of the Global Warming and Energy Committee of the Loma
Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club. “All the cities are coming
in line.”
In Los Gatos, both Deichstetter and
Akeena Solar got their panels approved after the new legislation
passed.
That’s good news for green-leaning
homeowners who want to take part in the California Solar
Initiative, which gives cash incentives for solar systems in hopes
of creating 3,000 megawatts of new solar electricity by 2017. But
for community officials, the idea of a “Million Solar
Roofs,” as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dubs the initiative, is
a potential planning nightmare. Though the Solar Rights Act renders
California governments virtually powerless to stop new solar
installations unless health and safety reasons are involved, they
still have to grapple with the effects. Meanwhile, other states are
just beginning to deal with the issue as their renewable energy
initiatives go into effect.
It’s not just the
brand-new solar installations that can clash with a
community’s aesthetic standards. Plenty of rooftops still
sport the dilapidated remains of the last solar boom of the 1970s,
and it’s not always pretty. Planners worry how today’s
boom might look in the future.
“The challenge is
that sometimes panels get neglected over time,” says Blake
Lyon, senior planner for Redwood City, Calif. “It is just
sitting there looking like an eyesore, and it is not doing anybody
any good.”
Oftentimes, though, the choice is not as
simple as being green or being pretty; being green can also
conflict with being green. Last year, a Redwood City resident
wanted to remove trees along the street because they were standing
in between the sun and his solar panel system. The city turned him
down. “While we are definitely trying to encourage and
support solar panel access, the street tree is a community
asset,” explains Lyon. Not only that, but trees also suck up
greenhouse gases, and their shade reduces the need for power-hungry
air conditioners. “You are potentially degrading the
community for the benefit of one individual,” says Lyon.
“It’s a conflict of positives.”
Jackie
Lynch, a planner with the city of Bellingham, Wash., has similar
worries about the clash between solar access and other
environmental concerns. “Should we be limiting building
heights in urban areas for solar?” she says. Doing so may
increase solar energy potential, but it also discourages cluster
development, leading to urban sprawl.
Bellingham’s
current zoning code does not provide for solar protection, and
planners handle these issues on a case-by-case basis. “You
have to have an informed decision on where and when and how to
place that solar panel,” says Lynch. A few years ago, a
developer applied for a permit to construct a tall building next to
a solar-based low-income multi-family complex. The building would
shade the solar system next door, but the city was unable to do
anything about it. “We contacted the building housing
authorities running the solar panel project, and all we could do
was apologize,” says Lynch.
Some California
planners are trying to replace their lost regulatory power with
education. Bud Lortz, Los Gatos’ director of community
development, meets with people who want to install solar panels.
“We work with them hand-in-hand and also with the solar
industry to achieve a good balance,” he says. “Quality
architecture and sustainability are not mutually exclusive, meaning
you can achieve both. You just have to put some thought on how you
approach it.”
Though solar panels are not yet very
common in Bellingham, Lynch expects that as the cost goes down,
more residents will want to get power from the sun. And, she says,
the level of conflict will increase. “We will have to deal
with that,” she says. “But I don’t know
how.”
The author is a freelance writer and
photographer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, who specializes
in cities and the environment.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline When the Joneses go solar.
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