GREEN AND GREENER

Last week, after a closed door meeting with members of the City Council, a stop-work order was lifted for a solar array under construction on a hillside in Northeast Los Angeles. The project, a 429 megawatt photo-voltaic system for a 53-bed nursing home adjacent to Debs Park, polarized residents in the surrounding communities: some decried the desecration of a pristine hillside, others questioned the wisdom of placing such an array in a High Fire Severity Zone; still others saw the uproar as blatant nimbyism.

On the surface, the law seems to favor this last group. The California Solar Rights Act of 1978 and its subsequent amendments, does not allow any governing body to block new solar projects with unreasonable regulation and requires that permits be obtained through an administrative not discretionary process. This means that solar panels can be placed just about anywhere without restriction and without public review. Here in Los Angeles, it’s about the same as getting an electrical permit.

By this standard, the nursing home did everything right. They wanted to be smart about energy costs and they wanted to be green. I really believe that their hearts were in the right place; but I also believe they were hoodwinked the company they picked to install the array. When these guys caught a glimpse of the several-acre open hillside above the nursing home, just there for the taking, I believe they steered their client away from the more difficult task of mounting the PV panels to the buildings and urged them to take advantage of the slope.

There’s green, and there’s green. I think by sizing the array far beyond what could be considered reasonable in anything zoned R-1 Residential, these guys were targeting the soon-to-expire rebates offered by the state – the larger the array, the bigger the rebates – and then the bigger payoff down the line: the nursing home does not own the array, it leases it, so the installers reap the benefits of the power the array generates in perpetuity. As the cost of power goes up, they make more money.

Is this the green economy everyone keeps talking about? Another opportunity for savvy entrepreneurs to make a few bucks in the guise of doing good? Sure, some would say, why not? Green is green; who does it hurt? I think it hurts all of us. Green should be about the big picture, certainly, but it should also be about livable places. I think any solar ordinance for Los Angeles should accommodate how a community chooses to builds itself. Things like the Northeast Hillside Ordinance allow us as citizens to participate, to feel we actually have a stake in shaping our neighborhood. How else are we to establish an emotional commitment to a place?

In our area, this particular corner of Northeast Los Angeles, along the banks of the Arroyo Seco, we want green everything – solar power, wastewater polishing, transit oriented development – but we also want to protect our environment. The bottom line is this: You can put solar panels anywhere; but how can you ever replace open space?