Take Our Poll: Easton's Solar Ordinance
A proposed solar panel ordinance for Easton would require people to get zoning approval.
At its meeting last week, Easton city council's planning committee took another crack at its long discussed solar power ordinance, which could come before the full council in the coming weeks.
As the Express-Times reported last week, the ordinance would not only affect the owners of solar panels, but it could impact their neighbors as well.
If the owner of a solar panel can show that their neighbor's addition would impact the panels, they can take that case before the zoning hearing board.
What do you think? Take our poll, and tell us in the comments below.
Jon Geeting
9:54 am on Sunday, July 29, 2012
It depends on what the city is trying to accomplish. If the goal is to reduce dirty energy use in the city, this seems like a bad idea.
Consider a scenario where the owner of a 2-story building downtown installs solar panels, and then a few months later, the owner of an empty lot next door decides to build a 4-story building.
Under the new solar ordinance, the owner of the 2-story building could try to get the zoning hearing board to reduce the allowable height of his neighbor's proposed building from 4 stories down to 2. Maybe the ZHB wouldn't go for it, but maybe they would.
Would that be a win for energy efficiency? Definitely not. The energy saved from solar panels is not even close to the amount of energy the city would save by housing more people and businesses in taller buildings.
Energy efficiency is all about land use. Solar technology is going to get a lot more powerful in the future, but the amount of energy it saves right now is not comparable to the amount of energy saved citywide by allowing denser construction.
So the question is what the city is trying to achieve with this ordinance. If it's greater energy efficiency, this provision sounds like a bad idea. If it's protecting individual building owners' investments in solar panels, that makes more sense. From a political standpoint, I think it makes more sense to subordinate the latter goal to the former.
louis kootsares
10:34 am on Sunday, July 29, 2012
humpf i have the same opinion as jon glad i read his first he expressed himself well
Julia
1:07 pm on Friday, August 24, 2012
When you walk/bike/drive around Easton, it is not full of empty lots. Most homes and buildings have... homes and buildings next to them. Jon is trying to make a general argument based on a specific (and not the most likely) scenario.