Allan Appel Photo
Trinity Solar’s Farrel (with wife Rosa) waits to come clean with commissioners.
“I’m here to apologize” are not the customary first words to emerge from the mouth of an applicant before a New Haven city commission.
Those very words were heard — and appreciated — as the installer of solar panels on a rooftop in historic Fair Haven said he was sorry for not seeking the Historic District Commission’s (HDC) approval before proceeding with the installation.
The location in question is a modest single-family home on the sunny corner of Exchange Street and East Pearl.
58 Exchange St., site of the solar installaltion.
The apologizer was Mike Farrell, the Connecticut sales and operations manager of Cheshire-based Trinity Solar.
“I’m here to apologize,” said Farrell as he took his seat before the commissioners in at the regular meeting of the HDC last week at City Hall ‘s meeting room two. “We’ve got a partial install, and then we heard … “
The commissioners asked if the panels were yet in, and how he came before them.
“The panels are not yet installed, but the racking component is intsalled,” he explained. “Has the commission ever approved” a residential solar array? he asked.
“Local HDCs have been encouraging green energy infrastructure,” replied the HDC Chair Trina Learned. “We have approved them.”
“Well, I’d like to get everything I need in order,” Farrel said. He was there on behalf of the owner and had just recently been brought into the picture when he was alerted that the install had to be suspended.
“It’s a small system — just seven modules. I can have my crews put the panels up and photograph them, and bring them in for you to look at and then take them off, and show you,” Farrell offered.
“Did the Building Department stop you?” Learned asked.
Farrell wasn’t sure how they had arrived at the present moment. Deputy City Plan Director Aicha Woods offered an explanation: “The city issued a permit, but it was to the wrong address.”
“And we missed catching it,” Farrell said, apologetically.
He said his company does 250 installs monthly. They involve a blizzard of paperwork and permissions, but he did not offer that as an excuse.
Trinity Solar Photo
Similar installation, in Branford, with flat dark panels.
Learned said it would not be necessary for Farrell to install a panel just for the sake of showing it to the commissioners. It was sufficient for him to bring in photos of similar panels where the modules are attached flat to the roof.
“You are attaching to an asphalt shingle roof?” Learned asked him.
“Yes.”
Then the theme of commissioners’ inquiry switched away from the roof to hardware. Learned asked if the inverter (the electrical box) had been installed yet. It had.
After Farrell showed a photograph of it, Learned’s concerns were aroused: “Now we have modern equipment on the street [East Pearl]-facing side.”
“I can remove that box and put it in the basement, if possible. I can get most of that off the side of the house,” Farrell said. “Though we do need to have a cut-off switch on the outside.”
The commissioners voted to continue the application through until the next meeting of the HDC, scheduled for Feb. 13.
“We appreciate your coming in with an apology,” said Commissioner Susan Godshall.
My observation over the years is that the Historic District Commission is quite arbitrary in their rulings and often ignores the national standards for The Treatment of Historic Properties: https://www.nps.gov/tps/standards.htm Adding to this is the fact that New Haven has no effective, consistent means of enforcing local historic district regulations. I live only a few blocks away from a 'local historic district' and violations over the years have been numerous, with the most egregious being unauthorized installation of vinyl replacement windows and modern thermal doors—violations committed even by those who were instrumental in creating the district! My overall impression has been that such districts are created primarily for the purpose of artificially inflating property values—NOT for the purpose of preserving historic buildings and historic street-scapes.
Learned: "Now we have modern equipment [the inverter] on the street [East Pearl]-facing side." But apparently modern-looking solar panels—also visible from the street—are OK.