HB1270, as passed by the Colorado Senate and sent to the House, will prevent homeowner’s associations from adopting or enforcing restrictive covenants that prevent the use of solar and wind generation, shade structures, shutters, attic fans, evaporative coolers, energy-efficient outdoor lighting and retractable clotheslines.
The law, if passed, will allow homeowner’s associations to enforce certain aesthetic restrictions. For example, a 40-foot wind turbine on a half-acre property would likely be deemed inappropriate with good reason. However, solar panels would likely face no opposition under the proposed law, though increased installation nationwide as a result of rising utility costs may trigger laws that mimic California’s Solar Shade Control Act.
This law, set in place as far back as 1979, recently resulted in a judgment against a homeowner whose redwood trees obstructed a neighbor’s solar array. Both sets of residents are purportedly environmentalists. The order – to cut down the trees – is reminiscent of King Solomon’s decision to placate two mothers by cutting an infant in half, and equally likely to please no one.
Measures that promote energy conservation, or employ eco-friendly alternative energy, must be allowed to flourish in a society on the edge of Peak Oil whose air, water and soil have been polluted by 50 years of intensive and often unregulated fossil fuel burning. There really is no other way to go. Difficulties will inevitably arise, as with the redwood trees, but solutions must be found.
Homeowner’s associations aren’t the only culprits. Many cities and municipalities currently have similar restrictions. In my neighborhood, inspectors make a visit if the grass is higher than eight inches. It doesn’t do any good to tell them that the patch of tall grass mixed with wildflowers is a prairie conservation measure. They’re not interested in vanishing prairies, or the gophers, chipmunks, birds, insects and groundhogs that inhabit them (all of which are disappearing). They live to enforce the law, and the law says eight inches is enough.
In some homeowner’s associations, you can’t even put up a flagpole. I imagine flying an actual flag would send the ruling powers into a tizzy. Flying it upside down – as I’m often tempted to do with the Bushies in office – would likely lead to house arrest. This particular association also has strict rules about lighting. The light emitted from any electrical device cannot exceed the perimeter of the property. If only one could get those pesky photons to cooperate, this might make sense. And the rule about attic fans – which supplement and can even replace air conditioning – will seem positively Inquisitorial once electricity prices begin reflecting the real cost of burning fossil fuels (as they will when this country finally adopts an authentic Energy Policy Act).
Allowing clotheslines seems to me a step in the right direction. Consider the fact that using an electric or gas dryer to dry a load of clothes will cost you about fifty cents and create about 2.4 pounds of carbon dioxide. Multiply that by the number of loads you do in a year, and your carbon footprint becomes substantial. I’m not even sure why clotheslines fell into disfavor (what could smell sweeter than line-dried sheets?), but perhaps it was all the tattered underwear on display.
In any case, as we enter the next really big recession – or perhaps even a Depression – we had better get used to making do or doing without. We had better get used to one another’s tattered underwear. Affording better will be difficult, drying them inside in electric or gas dryers prohibitively costly, and since politicians don’t mind displaying their tacky laundry, I don’t know why we should mind showing ours. At least our display will be an attempt to save energy, and the planet.
Disclosure: I don’t own stock in a company peripherally affected by HB1270.