Evan Yeats, Erin Palmer and Geoff Bromaghim: It’s past time to modernize DC’s solar panel guidance
As we confront the climate crisis, DC officials have set ambitious goals to lead our city toward a more sustainable future. One of the primary goals is having all of the District’s electricity generated by renewable sources by 2032. While we’ve made significant progress toward this end, the District’s historic preservation policies are still stuck in the past when it comes to our sustainable future.
As advisory neighborhood commissioners who represent the Takoma Park Historic District in Ward 4, the push for more sustainability was one of the first issues that confronted us when we came into office in January. At the time, a resident of Dahlia Street NW wanted to install rooftop solar panels that might be visible from the street. Despite rumblings that the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) might be an obstacle, the decision was for us a no-brainer. With the rest of our commission, we unanimously supported that application, stating in a resolution:
“Installation of solar panels reduces demand for conventionally generated electric power, thereby reducing environmentally damaging carbon emissions which are aggravating climate change. If we don’t preserve our planet against the catastrophic impact of climate change, we won’t be able to historically preserve anything.”
Thankfully, the HPRB agreed with us in this case, in a decision that one board member called “precedent-setting.”
So when a 5th Street NW homeowner approached us in June with a similar plan to install solar panels, we didn’t expect any issues with getting approval from HPRB. In another resolution, our commission again unanimously supported installation of the solar panels in the historic district, citing similarities to the past case.
But earlier this month the HPRB denied the homeowner’s application, signaling an uneven approach to enforcing board guidelines. The board’s capricious decision-making gives us serious cause for concern.
Now the District is proposing a new version of its “Sustainability Guide for Older and Historic Buildings” that clings to the outdated attempts to hide solar panels from street views. In light of the devastating impacts of climate change facing us, this priority is sorely misguided. The HPRB must recognize the global consequences of failing to enact systematic climate change solutions. We also reject the notion that solar panels are inherently ugly features that impair the visual aesthetic of our historic districts. In a unanimous resolution, our ANC reasoned that solar panels are substantially similar to other modern improvements on homes, but with the bonus of preserving our planet for our children:
“Over time, other technologies have emerged to become commonplace building add-ons that are visible on contributing structures in our historic districts, such as gas and electricity meters, window air-conditioning units, air-conditioning condenser units, and rain barrels. Rather than simply disallowing electric and gas service wherever visible from the street, however, guidelines were established for determining how and where to locate new or expanded meters to ensure that changes remain as compatible as possible with the character of historic properties.”
This isn’t a new argument. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter installed 32 solar panels visible from ground level on the White House, one of our most venerated historic structures. “A generation from now,” he proclaimed, “this … can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.” In his speech, he likened himself to William Henry Harrison, who installed the first electric lights at the White House.
The truth is that, in 2019, we are slacking in this fight. Climate change is real, it is happening quickly, and we must do more and act faster to mitigate its impacts. That includes allowing solar panels wherever possible as just another element of our modern life. We can’t place any more obstacles between the residents of DC and a sustainable future, and we must remove the ones that currently exist. We ask that the Historic Preservation Review Board finally join us on President Carter’s “most exciting adventure” and work to update its guidelines to allow solar Districtwide.
Evan Yeats, Erin Palmer and Geoff Bromaghim are members of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 4B. Their respective single-member districts — 4B02, 4B01 and 4B07 — encompass all of DC’s Takoma Park Historic District.
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