Welcome to Backwardville: Adventures with Solar Panels and Bureaucracy

I live in a backwards town.  If I had known 11 years ago what I know today, I would live somewhere else.  No question.  I'm not even going to get into what I pay in taxes and how few services we receive. Unfortunately, I love our house and our property.  It's finally getting to where we've been trying to get it.  We started putting an addition on in 2007 - blew out half of the back and tore the roof off.  This gave us space for an expanded kitchen, a laundry room/back hallway, and a master suite upstairs.  It was quite a process, we ended up with a bonus room we hadn't planned on, which was good.  There were many bad things that happened along the way too.  We had to deal with an incompetent architect and town inspectors who were not the brightest in addition to the normal bumps in the road that come with a construction project of this magnitude.  We had no kitchen for 3 years.  Yup, you read that right.  3 years.  I need to get around to writing a full post about the whole addition experience.  For now, suffice it to say, I love my new kitchen, bedroom, closet and bathroom and am not moving anytime soon.  Or ever. 

Days like today make me rethink that.  When we did the addition we also put solar panels on our roof.  They are great.  We are doing the right thing for the environment and get the added bonus of great savings on our electric bill.  The way they are installed, most people don't even notice them, they blend right into the roof.  They have worked out so well that we decided to go a step further and investigated solar hot water systems.  We found one that will be great for us and we decided to move forward with it.  It will really help us in the summer especially, as we don't have a traditional hot water heater.  Our water is heated through our furnace, thus in summer, our boiler can't be shut off and cycles on periodically throughout the day to maintain the supply of hot water.  The new system would produce enough hot water to enable us to shut off the boiler during the summer and reducing the amount of oil we burn. 

All good things, right?  One would think that local government would want to encourage homeowners to be green and to improve their properties.  In my town, one would be wrong.  Our permit application came back three weeks after submission, marked with a denial.  The denial simply states, "Solar panels cannot extend more than 8 inches beyond rooftop. Variance required"  Being an attorney, I want more.  Give me an ordinance citation at least.  I also have anecdotal evidence in addition to my own experience that there is almost nothing that you can do in this town that does not require a variance.  My view on this is that the town is trying to get more money out of its homeowners.  In addition, this town requires permits for projects that most other towns do not.  Really, a zoning permit for residential solar panels in a residential neighborhood? We didn't need a zoning permit for the first solar installation.  Ridiculous.  So my husband ventures down to the zoning office to acquire more information on the specific ordinance and what options are open to us from here.  The information he walks away with is astounding.  I was glad I was sitting down when he called me to share it. Drum roll, please.  The ordinance that caused our permit to be denied is not even in effect yet.  It's proposed, but hasn't been adopted.  The mayor is really pushing it though, because apparently my town has an issue with unsightly solar panel installations.  Seriously!?! 

I've never even heard of a situation where someone tried to enforce a statute or ordinance before it was in effect.  I wasn't aware that enforcing laws that don't exist was possible.  We also learned that the town's attorney specifically reviewed our application.  My question upon hearing this tidbit is this:  Is he stupid or is he trying to pull a fast one, figuring that a naive homeowner won't question the denial and will just pony up the extra $$ to apply for a variance and put out the effort that such an application requires?  I'm not sure, but I suspect the latter.  It may be because I am emotionally invested here, but I feel like my town is out to squeeze every dollar they can out of me while providing the lowest return on investment possible. 

Unfortunately for the town, we are not naive homeowners.  We've gone a few rounds with the town in the past, we have brains and mouths and aren't afraid to use either in situations like this one.  My husband began asking more questions about our options after the denial.  Both options (appeal or application for variance) require a significant investment of both time and money.  Weighing these and determining that the variance will likely be less onerous in the short term, he asked what the wording on the required notice will be, since the town provides it and it has to include the variance citation.  Unable to answer his questions, they indicated they would investigate and get back to him.  Happily, when the clerk called him back, she let him know that the decision had been made to rescind the denial of our application.  Sadly, now they have to send it to the building department and they have 3 weeks to act on it.  Sigh.  We won this battle, but I have a feeling the war is not yet over.  Fingers crossed that the application gets approved without further obstacles.   

Oh, yeah, and way to be green, Mr. Mayor.  I'm glad you're looking out for what is really important long term for the residents of our town.

Out with the Old, In with the New...Ideally

I'm so happy it's Friday.  This has been a super long week. Though not without high points, it has just been crazy busy.  Work has both ups and downs (am on a very exciting project that I have a lot to contribute to, but have to deal with a difficult co-worker), and home life is non-stop as usual.  We went furniture shopping yet again, but with different results this time.  Woohoo!  We found a living room set that we could agree on that also fits in our budget! I was beginning to think it would never happen and we would be sitting on the floor after the old sofa finally gave up the ghost...which was very close to happening.  It started to feel like buying a car.  On the final visit Wednesday night, we had it narrowed down to two almost identical sets.  Then came the sitting on one, moving to the other.  Rinse and repeat.  This went on for an hour easily, as my husband wanted to be sure about which one he liked better.  Factor in 3 trips to the potty for our 22 month old.  Oh, and of course the sets we were looking at were at the farthest part of the store away from the restroom.  Other than the trips to the restroom, she did great, happily sitting on the furniture in the showroom, playing with a balloon, and eating the non-staining snacks I brought along.  Then the signing and initialing 6 copies of paper work.  We finally got out of there at 9:15.  So that was a long, though victorious, evening.

Happily, they scheduled the delivery very quickly.  Sadly, that meant scrambling to get the old sofa out and the love seat temporarily parked in the living room to another temporary holding spot upstairs.  I was the only one around to help my husband with this.  Hmm.  We do not have a good history with moving furniture together.  Every time we attempt it, I remember that I never ever want to move again.  I do fine with other friends, but he and I do not do well in this particular arena.  I think the fact that I am 5'1" and he is 6'2" has a lot to do with it.  Our daughter got very upset when we started to move the sofa, which surprised me.  She sat in the dining room pointing to where the sofa had been and saying, "No, sofa back!"  Other than that, we did okay, got everything moved without any muttering about divorce and no trip to the ER.  Always a plus.  

I figured today would be easy, my husband will take delivery of the furniture, I'll call for bulk pickup of the old sofa and carpet.  Easy peasy.  Ha.  I should have known better.    

I called the town to schedule a bulk pickup and the lady who answers the phone tells me that I have to wait until January because they discontinue bulk pickup to do leaf pickup.  Okay.  For 3 MONTHS!?!  I'm thinking that my neighbors probably do not want to look at the 10 year old blue velvet sofa out in front of my house for that long.  The more she insists that I can either bring the stuff to the dump myself or have to wait til January, the more frustrated I become.  Putting aside the fact that almost no leaves have actually fallen from the trees yet, our town has very high taxes and it is becoming clearer by the day that residents get almost NO services for them.  We have to pay for weekly trash pickup, for sewer service, trying to get get permits to get work done is a challenge (and don't get me started on the time a township inspector lectured me that the town is involved in my addition to protect me, but missed the fact that there was no structural support designed for our new second floor), and I could go on and on.  And now I can add to the list that the first time in the 11 years that we've lived here and needed bulk pickup, they aren't doing them.  I asked the woman on the phone what services I get for the $xx,xxx tax dollars I pay every year.  She told me I was being nasty to her.  I really wasn't.  I didn't threaten her, get aggressive or curse at her.  I just asked her questions she couldn't answer.  She, however, was snide to me from the minute I said the words, "bulk pickup".  When I said I was going to just put it out at the curb and leave it there, she demanded my address.  I wasn't sure whether that was because she was scheduling me for a pickup after all or if it was so she could send code enforcement to give me a ticket.  Thankfully, she deigned to schedule a special pickup for me.  Whew.  I am relieved that I don't have to look at that thing for 3 more months.  

The fun continues.  Our house has three doors.  The sofa won't fit through two of them.  (I again curse the architect who designed our addition.)  The third one has a 90 degree turn immediately and this thing can't possibly make the turn.  So they have to bring it in through the kitchen window, over the island, through the dining room and finally make it into the living room.  Am I the only one who is happy to not be present for things like this?  I get so stressed by stuff like this.  It's just better if I'm not even there.  I'm not sure why I get so worked up.  Not being home is better.  I do something else to take my mind off of it and I get a call after it's all over.

And I just got that call.  Hooray!  Bring on the weekend, I am ready to collapse onto the new sofa!