CA Solar Shade Act Invoked by Neighbors
If your trees are shading your neighbor’s solar panels, you could be fined $1,000 a day. The 1978 California Solar Shade Act deems shading trees a nuisance. In Sunnyvale, CA, Prius driving Carolynn Bissett and Richard Treanor were convicted under the law after electric car driving neighbor Mark Vargas complained .
Source: New York Times
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So who was there first? Were the trees there before the solar panels went in? IF they were didn’t Vargas realize the shade pattern or that they would grow? IF NOT, then this seems like a stupid rule.
The solar panels were there first.
Richard Treanor might claim that they law is unconstitutional since it grants his neighbor an easement of light, without payment. That sounds like a taking without due process.
It should also be noted that the problem is more than tall trees since it also restricts Treanor’s future development of his property. As I understand, Treanor could not alter his house so that it would cast a shadow on the solar panels, even if the alterations were permitted by zoning laws.
Treanor might go to the Pacific Legal Foundation and ask them to finance the appeal since this is a taking of property in the guise of a nuisance regulation.
Steve Seldin
Actually the trees were there first. They got planted in 1996.