Daniel Englander
Missing the Forest for the Trees February 13, 2008 at 2:04 PM
It’s no secret that the Boston tech community harbors a deeply irrational desire to trade in the ‘Pike for the 101. But the next time some “innovator” talks to you about giving up your Waltham digs for a spot on Sand Hill Road, hand him some hedge clippers and say thanks but no thanks. For the past three years solar panel-owner Mark Vargas has been at war with his his Sunnyvale neighbors, Richard Treanor and Carolynn Bissett, over the unfortunate placement of their redwood trees. It seems their trees block the sun from reaching Vargas’s 10 kW array, effectively reducing the amount of electricity Vargas can generate.
Prosecutors from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office brought charges against the redwood owners under (get this…) California’s Solar Shade and Control Act. The 1979 law “bans trees or shrubs from shading more than 10 percent of a neighbor’s solar panels between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.”. In a December trial, a Santa Clara judge found the couple guilty of violating the Solar Shade and Control Act, a conviction they have now appealed.
After the jump, you be the judge.
To be sure, I’m definitely on Vargas’s side. Anyone dumb enough to let a solar installer convince him to put up panels behind some redwoods deserves a little sympathy.
And you thought Cape Wind had problems….
