The Briefing Room

General Category => Science, Technology and Knowledge => Topic started by: rangerrebew on July 20, 2021, 04:06:28 pm

Title: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: rangerrebew on July 20, 2021, 04:06:28 pm

BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible

07/14/2021 / By Ramon Tomey

A city in eastern Texas has banned residents from installing solar panels if these are visible from their roofs. Officials in the city of Tyler implemented the ban on solar panels back in 2012. According to authorities, the prohibition on solar panels was put in place as they look unsightly on top of residential homes. The ban later affected a company specializing in solar power installations that plied its trade in Tyler.

Wright-Way Services recently ran into this problem in June 2021. It specialized in solar power installations, real estate and construction and remodeling. The company had been servicing the region for more than a decade and had not encountered any problem with installing solar panels all across eastern Texas.

However, a meeting with city officials on the afternoon of June 18 revealed that the Wright-Way Services violated the 2012 ordinance. Owner Rudy Wright told CBS19: “We just got notified just a few days ago … that they were denying us [permits to install], because then they cited just the one sentence of the ordinance.”

https://www.climate.news/2021-07-14-texas-city-bans-residents-installing-solar-panels.html
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: Kamaji on July 20, 2021, 04:49:17 pm
Why "beyond stupid"?  Those panels are an ugly eye-sore, and limiting them this way is a perfectly good use of the zoning and building code laws.
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: Wingnut on July 20, 2021, 05:00:45 pm


Why "beyond stupid"?  Those panels are an ugly eye-sore, and limiting them this way is a perfectly good use of the zoning and building code laws.

Good on Tyler.  Those panels as stated above, are visual pollution!
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: thackney on July 20, 2021, 05:07:32 pm
I do not understand the belief that government should control the appearance of your home.

Oil well or solar panels, my property is my own to use.
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: Wingnut on July 20, 2021, 05:09:34 pm
I do not understand the belief that government should control the appearance of your home.

Oil well or solar panels, my property is my own to use.

Think of it a a big HOA!
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: thackney on July 20, 2021, 05:13:16 pm
New state law will force change of restrictive Tyler solar panel ordinance
https://www.cbs19.tv/article/news/local/new-state-law-will-change-tyler-solar-panel-ordinance/501-4a6adcc6-7d6e-4dc6-99a1-77b77279c091
July 16, 2021

...Under the current city ordinance, solar panels visible from a public street violate the ordinance. However a new state law, Senate Bill 398, is going into effect in September that will force a change to the city's rule.

"The new law restricts cities from regulating solar installations or solar energy devices," Tyler City Planner Kyle Kingma said. "Anything on the roof would be allowed, as long as it is flush-mounted."

Kingma said they are planning to talk about the ordinance at the next city council meeting. A meeting Rusk plans to attend.

"I'd like to see is that the city makes it as easy as possible for citizens to install solar safely," Rusk said....

- - - - - - - - - -

https://legiscan.com/TX/bill/SB398/2021

Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: thackney on July 20, 2021, 05:17:56 pm
Think of it a a big HOA!

Which I will NEVER again own property controlled by an HOA. 
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: Kamaji on July 20, 2021, 06:03:06 pm
I do not understand the belief that government should control the appearance of your home.

Oil well or solar panels, my property is my own to use.

I don't understand why I should have to put up with your bizarre and ugly design choices wrecking my peace and quiet and ruining my property values.

If you don't like it, go someplace else.  I hear properties abutting oil refineries are usually pretty cheap - go enjoy the neighborhood.
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: thackney on July 20, 2021, 06:29:39 pm
I don't understand why I should have to put up with your bizarre and ugly design choices wrecking my peace and quiet and ruining my property values.

If you don't like it, go someplace else.  I hear properties abutting oil refineries are usually pretty cheap - go enjoy the neighborhood.

I did.  No HOA, no zoning, lots of cows, good neighbors.

Enjoy your government controlled utopia.
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: GtHawk on July 20, 2021, 06:30:52 pm
Damn straight it’s not like we live in America or anything.
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: catfish1957 on July 20, 2021, 06:58:34 pm
I am all for property rights, but wish the same outrage would have been exhibited when countless folks polluted the western US vistas with Bird Killing Wind Turbines.
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: Potluck on July 20, 2021, 11:34:46 pm
I find this rather ironic really. All the critical elements declared, manufacturability, more energy in than out, material supply, weather problems … yada, yada, yada. Not even a dent in the “ignore-the-facts” environmentalism.
So what gets through. It’s ugly.
 :silly:   
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: sneakypete on July 20, 2021, 11:46:30 pm
Why "beyond stupid"?  Those panels are an ugly eye-sore, and limiting them this way is a perfectly good use of the zoning and building code laws.

@Kamaji

Ahhh,so you have the right to determine what other people can own,based on YOUR idea of beauty!

Gotcha,comrade!

Since you think you have the right to control others lives,what do you think would be a fair cut of their paychecks for you to get?
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: sneakypete on July 20, 2021, 11:47:27 pm

Good on Tyler.  Those panels as stated above, are visual pollution!

@Wingnut

Then don't look at them.
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: sneakypete on July 20, 2021, 11:49:41 pm
Which I will NEVER again own property controlled by an HOA.

@thackney

If Stalin were alive today,he would be a great admirer of HOA's,which are mostly populated by bitchy women and their neutered companions.
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: sneakypete on July 20, 2021, 11:51:28 pm
I don't understand why I should have to put up with your bizarre and ugly design choices wrecking my peace and quiet and ruining my property values.

If you don't like it, go someplace else. 

@Kamaji

You have that backwards,bubba. It is THEIR property,and if YOU don't like it,YOU have the right to either not look in that direction,or to move somewhere else. The rest of the world does NOT exist to please YOU.
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: sneakypete on July 20, 2021, 11:53:45 pm
Damn straight it’s not like we live in America or anything.

@GtHawk

BINGO!

There seems to be some people here confused about individual freedoms.
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: art.prout on July 20, 2021, 11:55:22 pm
I do not understand the belief that government should control the appearance of your home.

Oil well or solar panels, my property is my own to use.

I can get behind that sentiment!
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: sneakypete on July 20, 2021, 11:56:54 pm

Quote
I do not understand the belief that government should control the appearance of your home.

@thackney

These people ain't goobermint agents,they are HOA's.


Quote
Oil well or solar panels, my property is my own to use.


Damn straight! Anything else is Nazism! We are either free,or we are slaves. There IS no in-between.
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: Wingnut on July 21, 2021, 12:30:54 am
@Wingnut

Then don't look at them.

How do you not?
Title: Re: BEYOND STUPID: Texas city bans residents from using solar panels if they are visible
Post by: sneakypete on July 21, 2021, 02:17:57 am
How do you not?

@Wingnut

I dunno what to tell you. I have never had any trouble at all ignoring ugly and viewing beauty.

Seriously.

Is it possible you were looking for something to be mad about?