Thor Carpenter and his wife cannot ignore their neighbor’s huge solar panel system that rotates in his front yard.
It’s not a standard rooftop solar panel and it’s the only one of its kind in the city of Kirkland.
The square-shaped dual-axis solar array system is more than 16-feet wide and 17-feet tall. The freestanding motorized structure is mounted on a pole and rotates throughout the day, depending on the sun’s position to optimize the sunlight.
Sometimes during the day, Carpenter said the solar array reflects light that glares into his master bedroom.
Other days, depending on the solar panel’s position, the entire back of his house lights up, he said.
“So that’s a lot of surface to be shining at you,” said Carpenter, who has photos he took of the solar panel casting back light into his home. “It’s really hard to ignore that thing, it’s so gigantic.”
Carpenter and a group of more than 20 Finn Hill neighbors are upset that the city allowed this solar panel to be installed. They met with city planners on Aug. 8 to discuss their concerns over the solar array and some code violations with the structure, as well as find out why the city allowed the solar panel to be installed.
Carpenter, who moved into his home just weeks before his neighbor installed the system in May, said he tried to have a “cool conversation” with his neighbor, Gary Mosher, about his solar structure. Carpenter also offered to help Mosher screen the system by planting some trees and shrubbery.
But Mosher wouldn’t budge, he said.
Carpenter filed a complaint over the structure with the city, noting the edge of the solar panels cross his property line when they rotate.
“The city was misled,” he said of the permit that Mosher filed to install the solar system. “Gary was not forthcoming with the dimensions of the solar array itself … We’re trying to get the city to agree that he did not in good faith permit this apparatus.”
City officials have since noted that the solar array does violate the city’s setback requirements as the structure is less than 5 feet away from Carpenter’s property line. Mosher has also agreed to move the array to meet that requirement.
However, as far as the panel itself, the city currently does not have a code that governs any type of solar structure.
“It’s been a frustrating process,” Carpenter said. “It’s hard to work with the rules when the rules don’t govern this sort of thing.”
He said the city classifies the solar panel as an attached dwelling unit.
“Most people would think it’s a giant moving billboard and if I were to build a giant billboard on my property, the city would object to that. There’s a discrepancy between common sense and city code.”
Carpenter noted that his neighbor spent $33,000 on the solar system that would have been cheaper and less obtrusive to neighbors to place on the ground or on his rooftop.
“It’s really unfortunate because everyone likes to hear about a good green project but this was done in a poorly designed way with a huge impact to the neighborhood,” he added.
Kirkland resident Pierre Guerts agrees.
“No one sent us a letter about [the solar panel] – absolutely nothing – so we were all shell shocked about this,” said Guerts, who lives near the solar panel. “It’s an interesting issue because we all are in favor of green energy when done properly and with a certain amount of common sense. Put it on your roof, but these 17-foot industrial panels perched on the edge of the street are just not acceptable for us.”
He said the “ugly” structure has devalued his property and “has taken the charm and aesthetic out of the neighborhood.”
While he said some may see this as a “NIMBY” (Not In My Backyard) issue, “it’s a bigger topic since this has to do with common sense and infringing on your neighbor’s rights.”
Guerts also wants city officials to “go through the due diligence it should have gone through in the beginning,” before “rubber-stamping” Mosher’s permit.
He hopes the city will establish a new ordinance regarding solar panel structures that will stipulate a freestanding system such as Mosher’s is disallowed in a residential neighborhood.
“The city is in the process of learning a lesson,” Guerts added. “As solar panels get cheaper and people look to reduce their carbon footprint and overall consumption of energy, you’re going to have to deal with it.”
Rotating solar panel system
“I’ve planted 47 trees today,” said Mosher on a recent afternoon at his Finn Hill home, as he pointed to a computer screen in his study.
He explained how an online system measures his daily, weekly and monthly energy consumption. The system also shows him things such as the equivalent bulbs he is powering, how much CO2 he has reduced and how many equivalent trees he has planted.
“My consumption is 8,500 kilowatt hours per year – this system will cut that in half,” he said of his solar array system.
Mosher, a senior project manager for The Boeing Co., said he is a life-long environmentalist.
As solar technology began to progress and the cost started to decrease, he began weighing his options for using solar energy and reducing his carbon footprint.
“I’m not in a terribly conducive location because of the trees and I didn’t want to tear them down,” said Mosher on a recent afternoon as he pointed out his living room window at the looming Douglas firs. “I thought about a roof system, but I’d lose probably 30 percent of the available sun in this area because of the problem with trees.”
He also considered a ground level solar system, but didn’t want the task of managing the invasive blackberry bushes around the solar array.
Mosher admitted that when he decided on his solar array, he “didn’t consider the effect on the neighbors.”
He said he also made a mistake by not going to the city’s Planning Department first to figure out what laws would apply to his system. Nevertheless, the city ultimately approved his permit for the solar panel, including for the the system’s base and its location relative to the property line.
When he went to install his panels, the model that he had initially chosen wasn’t available.
“I had to go with a slightly larger panel, so that made the array width slightly longer. That new position has then caused my array to slip over into my neighbor’s property area,” said Mosher, noting that he plans to move the structure to correct this violation.
However, he said he still has a “bone of contention” with the city over the way officials have interpreted the 5 foot offset.
In the past few weeks, several neighbors have come by Mosher’s house to express their feelings about his solar system. He said he was initially offended when one neighbor told him they didn’t like the looks of his structure.
“They didn’t like the looks of it, but you have some houses on the end of this street that look like they’re from Appalachia,” he said. “I just found that really troubling as a homeowner.”
Last week, another neighbor came by his home and told Mosher his solar system was an eyesore. He said the neighbor even threatened him.
“There’s obviously emotional reactions,” he said, noting his closest neighbor, Carpenter, has expressed the most outrage. “He seems to think it’s affecting his property value. I don’t know where he’s going to go with it. He can constantly complain to the city.”
He has also told neighbors he would entertain putting plants in front of his system to help screen it.
However, he said the plants cannot be any higher than 6 feet because he doesn’t want them to block the sun.
He told one neighbor that he would have to buy the plants and plant them but he never heard back from him. But he denies Carpenter’s claims that he offered to help him screen his solar array.
Mosher is adamant that his solar system does not produce glare.
“When it’s moving, it’s perpendicular to the sun and it has a matted surface. It’s meant to absorb sun; it’s not meant to reflect it,” he said. “If it was reflecting sunlight it wouldn’t be doing its job.”
He pulled out a copy of the photo Carpenter took of the apparent glare. Mosher explained about three weeks ago his solar system went down because of a circuitry issue and it went into a stationary position for a couple of weeks. He suspects that may be when his neighbor took the picture.
He took out another photo that he took of his solar array, which does not show glare.
“When it normally operates, this is what it looks like. When you are directly between the solar system and the sun, that’s when you get glare,” he said, noting that his neighbor’s home is “never going to be between the sun and that solar system.”
He said he will work with city officials and correct his code violations “but I’m not going to deal with hysterical people. They can shout all they want but it is my right and I’m going to continue to operate a solar system on my property. I’m not going to be badgered into tearing this thing down – pure and simple.”
City’s response
One of the challenges for city officials is determining whether the solar panels’ so-called glare is annoying.
A reflection becomes a glare – and therefore violates city code – when it annoys someone, said Eric Shields, director of planning who met with neighbors on Aug. 8.
“Glare is a problem because it’s something we don’t allow but it’s less tangible to regulate,” Shields said.
He said the city’s authority on the solar panel is also limited because the city currently does not have a code solely focused on solar panels.
Years ago, the city made a height allowance for rooftop solar panels. But the use of freestanding solar panels has yet to be addressed, said Shields.
When city planners met with the concerned neighbors, they agreed they could put freestanding solar panels into a package of zoning code amendments, Shields said.
“It would be some sort of zoning code amendment. It could go as far as prohibiting freestanding solar arrays,” he said, noting the amendment will first go before the Planning Commission and then to the Council.
However, Mosher’s project will be grandfathered-in using the code that existed at the time his building permit was filed, “so any changes the council might make in the future most likely would not apply to the existing project,” said Kirkland Councilman Toby Nixon. “Now that we see what happened in this case, it’s possible the city council might make some policy changes that would affect future projects, but it’s too early to know what those might be.”
Nixon added that existing broad city policies also encourage the use of renewable energy, including the use of solar panels.
“I know some of the neighbors think the movement of the array is obtrusive and that the whole thing is ugly and out-of-place, but we’d have to see if those considerations override the established pro-solar policy, and how we would deal with fairly subjective appearance judgments (like ‘ugliness’) versus objectively-measurable things like setbacks and height,” said Nixon. “[It’s] just hard to say at this point. I think we need more study and to understand the policy alternatives before considering what to do.”
