Jun 1 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Cyndy Cole The Arizona Daily Sun, Flagstaff

In a high-end Flagstaff neighborhood where residents shun the sight of satellite dishes and utility lines, one resident is disregarding the rules.

Cindy Perin's 2,700 square-foot home in Coyote Springs will likely be certified for its sustainability by virtue of its energy-efficient design and construction with recycled materials.

The problem, says her homeowners association, is that she won't partially hide a large bank of shoulder-high, energy-generating solar panels. They have threatened legal action.

"They think it's ugly," Perin said.

Although state law prohibits neighborhood design rules from preventing the installation of solar panels, the panels are receiving a mixed reception around Flagstaff, according to anecdotes from builders, local planners and homeowners.

This is more often the case in affluent developments than elsewhere, they say.

Coyote Springs is a group of 18 lots and million-dollar homes modeled on the rustic Colton House.

Residents can't have swing sets or cars under repair or clotheslines that their neighbors can see, according to the homeowners association rules. Wind turbines are also banned.

Perin's house appears much like the others on her road, with its malapai rock exterior, except for the solar panels in her driveway and four more on her roof.

But the inside, when completed, will stand apart.

Her floors will be made of cork, her counters of recycled money and newspaper, her walls of specialty blocks, and her insulation of shredded blue jeans.

Her appliances will be energy-efficient, her showers warmed mostly by the sun and her home heated by solar hot water and powered partly by solar electricity.

She'll pay about 20 percent more for this home than one built with traditional materials, she estimates. But she sees it as her environmental duty, particularly since she can afford it.

Her neighbors inhabit traditional homes.

"I'm a little more progressive," she said.

Perin doesn't want to build a wall or plant large shrubs around her solar panels, saying the $30,000 investment would generate less electricity if shaded by a disguise.

Neighbors have said her photovoltaic panels could blind drivers passing by.

"The installation of solar has to be thought out very carefully ... to ensure it's not reflecting into your neighbor's window or anything," said homeowners association president and former Coconino County Supervisor Paul Babbitt.

The homeowners association has pledged, via a letter from its attorney, to take legal action if she won't hide the panels.

"I think it's possible to screen your solar panel from your neighbors, and that's all we're asking her to do," said Robert Breunig, director of the Museum of Northern Arizona and who heads the homeowner association's architectural review group.

Architectural and Environmental Associates installs 30 to 40 solar arrays in Flagstaff per year, mostly without opposition, said Jason Campbell, vice president of renewable energy.

His company just installed a solar array in Forest Highlands, which he believed to be the first, without complaints.

Solar power will next be built into roof shingles, and might soon be considered an elemental part of any Southwestern home, just like a window or a door, said architect Daniel Peter Aiello, chairman of the Arizona Solar Energy Association. "In the '60s, it was kind of the lunatic and educational fringe. Now you've got communities, towns, cities, and everybody's doing it," he said.

But over in East Flagstaff's wealthy Amberwood neighborhood, another resident building a new home has run into a roadblock: His neighbors didn't want solar panels at all.

"The objection was that solar panels don't belong in a residential area," said John Lowe, who works for a Southern California software consulting firm.

Lowe plans to build fencing around his solar array, which will be about 5 feet high and 30 feet long, or split into two sections.

"We don't believe this is something our neighbors need to see, so we're willing to screen it completely," he said.

And he hopes to resolve the dispute peacefully, without bad feelings, he said.

First, he tried arguing to a homeowners association committee: that sustainability is a good idea, that power costs are climbing, that he'll go above and beyond what the neighborhood requires to hide his solar panels from others.

The homeowners association denied him.

So Lowe pointed to state law, which says homeowners associations can't ban solar panels, or add requirements that make them less efficient at catching the sun.

The irony, he said, is that a couple of those who opposed him belong to environmental groups, including one who is a member of Friends of Flagstaff's Future.

There's a gap, he said, between the beliefs some of his neighbors maintain and what they're willing to allow.

"When the rubber hits the road," he said, "people are like: Well, no."