POAs implemented restrictions against solar devices in their deed restrictions. Now the Legislature is hoping to eliminate those restrictions so that solar energy usage will increase
Send your comments and news tips to roundup.editor@gmail.com, to Ms. Hopson at hopsonbarbara@yahoo.com or click on the "comments" at the bottom of the story
By Barbara Hopson
Special to the RoundUp
More bills dealing with solar energy were introduced in this legislative session than were bills dealing with rainwater collection, but there was duplication in the solar bills. The bills fall into two broad categories: bills dealing with incentives for solar energy adoption and bills dealing with property owners' associations vis-a-vis solar devices.Of the five bills dealing with incentives, all five are languishing in committee and probably won't be reported out. That is not surprising at a time when the Legislature is dealing with such a shortfall of revenue as compared to spending. Not a time for new incentives. I won't report on the ill-fated bills, but here are the numbers if you want to look them up: HB 3532, HB 3260, HB 2961, HB 2428, and SB 492.
The bills dealing with property owners' associations (POAs) and solar devices deal with the fact that not-so-long ago solar devices on roofs were considered ugly. (I guess they still are, but now they also seem increasingly necessary.) POAs implemented restrictions against solar devices in their deed restrictions. Now the Legislature is hoping to eliminate those restrictions so that solar energy usage will increase.
There are five House bills dealing with POAs/solar. All of them (except one) are left pending in committees. But HB 362, authored by Burt Solomons (R-Carrollton), passed the full House on April 11. Solomons is the head of the House Redistricting Committee, and my guess is that no House member wanted to step on Solomons' toes, and they all deferred to his bill and let their own take a nap. At any rate, Solomons' bill reached the Senate Intergovernmental Relations Committee on April 20. It is captioned "Relating to the regulation by a property owners' association of solar energy devices and certain roofing materials."
Senate Bill 238 (West & Wentworth) passed the full Senate on March 31 by a 31-0 vote. It would allow solar installations on roofs or in yards, but with specific regulations which must be approved by the POA.
14 comments:
POAs did not prohibit them. The developer that imposed restrictive covenants on the subdivision prohibited them. Homeowners looking for housing have little choice but to accept property with such restrictions.
You're right. Initially it was the developer who wrote up the restrictive covenants. However, the
Lege and I talk about POAs because
it is the homeowners who make up the POA, and there is a procedure by which those homeowners can change the deed restrictions. Usually a certain percentage of the homeowners have to vote to change the deed restrictions.
Of course, if the Lege nullifies
deed restrictions against solar devices, no vote by the POA members will be needed.
Homeowners should refuse to buy in any subdivision that prohibits solar energy systems or rainwater collection. Such restriction are antiquated and based on homeownership trend ignorance both on the part of the developers and home buyers.
I recommend to some smart visionary developer(s) that they build in such add-ons to the base house plan or have them as an installed option to the spec home or customized construction based on the models offered for consumer choice.
Going forward, more and more homeowners will gladly sacrifice bourgeois American Dream big homes for reasonable size with water and energy efficiency.
Houses that are too big for the owner’s true space needs now make the owners look greedy and stupid - and the developers out of touch with modern architectural demands.
Besides, these big energy inefficient homes (and business complexes) make all of our water and energy costs higher due to supply and demand. It is like smokers and obese people who make all our health insurance costs more expensive, as if the insurance industry needs any more excuses to raise health insurance premiums.
If now is not the time to reassess our lifestyle choices, I don’t know when would be a better time. Which makes these legislative updates more important than ever for consumer knowledge.
Rocky that is easy for you to say. What about those of us who already live in subdivisions with restrictive covenants whose neighbors will not approve a change in deed restrictions for anything. Moving in this economy is not an option.
By the way health insurance does not track with deed restriction on water usage. Smoking and obesity are factors but not the whole equation.
Sorry Pamela, I meant for NEW subdivisions only. And let's hope the Lege nullifies current homeowner restrictions against solar and water collection as well.
But the health insurance vs. water and energy utility supply / demand comparison is totally accurate. Anything that costs the supplier more will charge the user more for the product or service.
Obesity and smoking and alcohol abuse decreases profits for health insurance companies - so they charge all of us for it via higher premiums, whether we are healthy or not (especially in group plans).
The same is true for homeowners using more energy and water. As the demand increases and supply decreases, the charges assessed to the user will go up for all of us.
Deed restrictions are near impossible for a POA or its members to change and that may be a good thing to prevent predatory POAs from onerous changes through homeowner ignorance and apathy. The Legislature should legislate the removal of ANY and ALL restrictions on rainwater and solar as well as strike down the unconstitutional ability of POAs to foreclose on homesteads for non payment of fees and fines as they are currently allowed to do by Texas law.
Rocky said... "Obesity and smoking and alcohol abuse decreases profits for health insurance companies - so they charge all of us for it via higher premiums, whether we are healthy or not (especially in group plans)."
It seems to always be the big corporations with their "excessive profits" with you, yet you apparently make a living advising others to invest in them. You have me confused. Why do you never blame the government for our nation's financial ills?
Won't you even acknowledge that the federal government is currently destroying our economy and mortgaging our future? The Fed is printing money in record amounts, now it takes more of our dollars to purchase anything including medical care.
I am sorry for straying from the main subject here, but you struck a nerve. --- Peace
PEC has some incentives for solar energy. Go to www.pec.coop. Search for "solar power." There are 8 hits.
To Richard Sullivan, May 6, 10:37 PM:
It is NOT nearly impossible for members of a POA to change deed restrictions. I know, because as a former resident of Woodcreek North, I've seen it done there several times. I've also seen residents vote down changes which the WPOA Board tried to implement.
People merely need to get up on their hind legs and taken action (or resist unwanted action).
The entire City of Woodcreek was formed by residents of WPOA who voted to secede from WPOA and who then formed their own city.
Since you are on the WPOA Board, I would think you would know these things.
The method and success of changing Deed restrictions varies form POA to POA. Most require at least 51% of the property owners to approve the changes. Most of the 20 or so sections in Woodcreek North and Eagle Rock require that the owners of a majority of building sites in the Section vote for the change. There again it varies between sections. Some would be easier than others. Since many of the lots are owned by absentee owners and a certain amount of apathy exists changes are difficult. In 2008 a poorly conceived attempt at a unified Deed Restrictions for all sections went down in flames for lack of enough votes. It is not a majority of the ballots received it is a majority of the ballots sent out that rules. I hope this didn't confuse further.
SB 238 (West & Wentworth) has passed the Senate, has been read the 1st time in the House, and has
been passed out of House committee favorably. It looks as if the bill has a strong chance of becoming law.
SB 238 has to do with solar energy devices and POAs.
Richard says:
"It seems to always be the big corporations with their "excessive profits" with you, yet you apparently make a living advising others to invest in them. You have me confused. Why do you never blame the government for our nation's financial ills?"
Richard, show me how the federal government is causing our health insurance premiums to skyrocket? Show me how unrestricted corporate mindset was not the cause of the recession we just went through? Tell me why no major bank or financial services CEOs were prosecuted by the big bad government?
What you and most rabidly anti-government citizens refuse to acknowledge is that the corporations control government, not the other way around.
I don't know what keeps you from not blaming the real culprit. Is it your undying loyalty to what you believe is the American Dream of healthy free enterprise? Is it simply too difficult to see that the American fantasy is now a lie and just a way for your corporate lackey politicians to manipulate you into perpetuating the failed system you contantly defend?
As to my "conflict of interest" as you see it, I am not anti-corporate, I am anti-corporate fascism or totalitarianism. There is a big difference.
What you seem unable to understand is that corporate charters are mandated to control as much of the market as they can. And when they get to the point that they are destructive to the American economy, they need to be reined in. We are at the point now.
You also say:
"The Fed is printing money in record amounts, now it takes more of our dollars to purchase anything including medical care."
The Federal Reserve Board is not a government agency. It is a private banking agency with federal government powers. They are a quasi-independent institution that is supposed to only use interest rates to control inflation.
Instead, they are now a revolving door for Wall Street bankers - particularly Goldman Sachs - to do their bidding. The Fed has money printing power and are simply there to make sure the banking industry never fails and is always in control of your money.
Since that is true, why are you defending them on the one hand, calling me "corporate obsessed" when I criticize them, yet you want to blame government for the private sector Fed printing money and causing skyrocketing inflation?
Yet you need to blame the government for our economic and political ills. Sorry, but you are denying the reality that we all need to acknowledge so we can move forward.
My friend, you need to get your economic realities re-aligned to accept the truth. Maybe someday?
Btw, Richard, what you feel about ATI is a perfect down home example of what is happening all over America and the world. Your powerlessness is only beginning.
The regulators are controlled by the regulated and the citizen consumers get screwed. How you feel about ATI is the same sentiment I feel about much of the Wall Street money machine - mainly the multinationals.
Update on solar energy bills, as of 7:45 p.m. on May 22:
Since the Lege is so busy with trying to get a budget passed, solar energy bills have received little attention. Most of them are
still sitting in the committees to
which they were assigned. Haven't even had public hearings.
But HB 362 (Solomons) and SB 238
(Wentworth), companion bills, may
make it to become law. Each has passed its respective house and has cleared the committee (but not full house) of the opposite body.
If the two bills can hurry and marry up in a joint commitee, they may squeak by to become law. But
with so much before the Lege, I
wouldn't count on it.
Post a Comment