Trees block solar panels, and a feud ends in U.S. court

SUNNYVALE, California: Call it an eco-parable: one Prius-driving couple take pride in their eight redwoods, the first of them planted over a decade ago. Their electric-car-driving neighbors take pride in their rooftop solar panels, installed five years after the first trees were planted.

Trees – redwoods, live oaks or blossoming fruit trees – are usually considered sturdy citizens of the sun-swept peninsula south of San Francisco, not criminal elements. But under a 1978 state law protecting homeowners’ investment in rooftop solar panels, trees that impede solar panels’ access to the sun can be deemed a nuisance and their owners fined up to $1,000 a day. The Solar Shade Act was an obscure curiosity until late last year, when a dispute over the eight redwoods (a k a Tree No. 1, Tree No. 2, Tree No. 3, etc.) ended up in Santa Clara County criminal court.


The couple who planted the trees, Carolynn Bissett and Richard Treanor, were convicted of violating the law, based on the complaint of their neighbor, Mark Vargas, and were ordered to make sure that no more than 10 percent of the solar panels are shaded.

A few weeks after The San Jose Mercury News wrote about the situation, the first act ended with the couple pruning 10 feet to 15 feet, or 3 meters to 4.5 meters, of Tree No. 6’s upper branches. The event drew more cameras than an episode of “Extreme Home Makeover.”

“Across the nation, everyone’s had a push-and-shove situation with a neighbor,” said Joe Simitian, a Democratic state senator from nearby Palo Alto. “Everyone who reads this story can imagine themselves on one side or the other of that backyard fence.”
To avoid future problems, Simitian has introduced a bill to ensure that trees planted before solar panels are installed have a right to grow in peace. If he succeeds, the state that legalized medical marijuana may soon do the same for shade.

IHT