Portsmouth councilors look to take away historic panel's ability to reject solar arrays

PORTSMOUTH — City Councilors Josh Denton and Rich Blalock are pushing an initiative to take away the Historic District Commission’s power to approve or reject solar array proposals.

Denton and Blalock are slated to raise the issue at Monday night’s City Council meeting in hopes of holding first reading on the proposal at the Jan. 16 council meeting.

Denton and Blalock want to add a section to the rules governing the HDC stating “the review of solar energy panels is not within the purview of the Historic District Commission’s powers and duties.”

Their proposal to take that authority away from the HDC comes after its recent rejection of several proposed solar arrays in the city's historic district, including two at one November meeting.

New Castle Avenue resident Anne Moodey's application to put a solar array on the back of her home was one of the proposals rejected by the HDC.

“Yes it’s not the most beautiful thing in the world, but it’s on the back of my house,” Moodey said during a recent interview. “But the fact that it’s helping the environment is more important.”

Previous story: Portsmouth woman says city board rejecting solar array puts looks over environment

She said none of her neighbors spoke against the solar array, which wouldn't be visible from the street if it was approved as first proposed.

“I find the hypocrisy of the way they approach things in the town disturbing,” she said about the HDC. “If you’ve got a lot of money, you can get things done, but my simple tiny little project that’s not bothering anybody gets rejected.”

Denton said it’s “been a long-standing goal of mine to get more solar arrays in the historic district. A lot of the things in the historic district are not historic, paved driveways, telephone poles, fire hydrants, none of that is historic, they're utilities. That’s the way solar panels should be looked at.”

Denton says the environment should take priority

While Denton understands the HDC is a design review panel, he believes in the big picture it is more important to allow property owners to install solar arrays on homes for the good of the environment than regulating their appearance.

“I would like to see solar arrays everywhere. They make sense,” he said. “We want to remove the oversight of the HDC.”

Denton acknowledged the recent rejections of solar array applications by the HDC “changed other councilors’ opinions” about the proposal he authored with Blalock.

“Now I’m confident I do have the votes to do it, and it’s partially due to the denials,” Denton said.

He has heard “concerns that visible solar array might diminish homes values in the historic district.”

Denton believes “not doing everything we can to diminish climate change will have a bigger impact on home values.”

City Councilor Rich Blalock said “the residents of Portsmouth want to keep our history above water.”

“If a homeowner wants to install solar panels on their roof to help fight climate change, then the city of Portsmouth should encourage them to do so instead of preventing them or adding any cost to such a project,” Blalock said Friday. “It’s important to preserve our history , however, I don’t believe we should be prioritizing the view of asphalt shingles on one’s back roof over clean energy.”

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Denton and Blalock are working together on the initiative because Blalock is the council’s representative on the HDC. He made a motion to approve Moodey’s solar array proposal that failed.

Blalock voted to approve her solar array and apologized to her when it was rejected by a majority of the commission.

“He’s spoken about it since, it was frustrating to him to have it denied,” Denton said.

Blalock and Denton are seeking to have first reading of the proposed change in January because Monday’s meeting is the last in the current council’s term.

The new term will start in January, and all nine current councilors are returning.

Solar power a longtime goal

Denton said the only time he spoke at an HDC meeting was eight years ago, after he was elected to the council for the first time.

He stated then the HDC should adopt guidelines “to allow solar arrays in the historic district if first the home is buttoned up,” meaning there’s no heat leaking from the house.

That hasn’t happened and “it’s been eight years," Denton said, adding, “there’s now support in the community for this.”

If the proposed change to HDC rules is approved, property owners will still have to go through the same permitting process before installing solar arrays.

“But they won’t have to go to the HDC to get approval,” Denton said.

Denton said he and Blalock plan in the future to propose changes to the zoning ordinance to make it easier for people to install solar arrays in and out of the historic district.

One regulation that he believes should change, now states that arrays cannot be “visible from a point 20 feet above the edge of the street right of way on the opposite side of the street,” Denton said.

Monday’s meeting is slated to begin at 7 p.m. and will be held in City Council chambers in City Hall.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth councilors may end HDC's ability to reject solar panels