A new sun-tracking solar collector just off Avenida Vista Grande in the Eldorado subdivision is getting attention from residents.

Some like it; others think the new pole-mounted structure and others like it sprouting around the community are eyesores.

Although Eldorado was a leader in passive-solar construction in the early 1980s, homeowners today are divided over whether the latest solar arrays interfere with the natural vistas for which the subdivision is known.

Mark Young, a staffer at the Eldorado Community Improvement Association and liaison to the Architectural Committee, said he's received numerous complaints about the newest device and there have been some heated board meetings on the subject of solar installations.

Earlier this year, the Architectural Committee, which reviews applications for permanent structures like solar trackers, resigned en masse after the board snubbed its recommendation and approved a variance allowing a pole-mounted collector on Verano Lane.

The ECIA is now in the process of weighing the relative benefits of solar power against preservation of viewscapes in preparation for updating the guidelines which interpret the subdivision's covenants.

Currently the only direct mention of solar in the guidelines is in a section on permitted design features.

This will be a measured process, ECIA general manager Bill Donohue promised. There will be a public hearing for residents to comment in on proposed changes before they are adopted.

"This is all new territory," Donohue said. "We're hoping both sides can work together."

The ECIA board won't oppose solar collectors, he declared, but it also wants to protect the community's viewscapes and expects cooperation from residents. "We're concerned about the neighbors," he stressed.

As it develops new guidelines, the board is getting help from an ad hoc committee on renewable energy that is advising the body on all kinds of sustainability issues, including solar collectors.

"It's a complicated issue. The community has varying viewpoints," conceded Dana Richards, a resident who is chairing the so-called Green Committee. "We're on the cusp of a changing concept of aesthetics," he explained. "We accept vehicles parked in driveways, swamp coolers and vent stacks on the roofs of our homes as part of the landscape, because they are essential. But solar hasn't been in the viewscape very much, or for very long, so it challenges people's aesthetic sense."

In rewriting its guidelines, the ECIA doesn't want to run afoul of state law. The New Mexico Solar Rights Act, passed in 1978 and strengthened in 2007, prohibits counties and municipalities from restricting use of solar energy, except in historic districts.

The law also bars homeowner associations from enforcing covenants that "effectively prohibit" a solar installation, by, for example, adding significantly to the cost through various screening requirements.

Because solar collectors are considered permanent structures, Eldorado homeowners must submit applications to install them and might also be required to screen them under current guidelines, Donohue said.

Greg Bundrick, a member of the ad hoc committee, said, "Imagine if they are in every yard? Certainly even I, who find them somewhat attractive, might feel they should be screened."

But how much screening might be allowed under the law before a property owner's solar rights are impinged is unclear. And that is the crux of the challenge.

A long road to solar

Earlier this year, Joseph Eigner and his wife sought approval for a new solar tracker on Verano Lane. The Architectural Committee visited their house and asked the couple to plant up to six large evergreen trees on the north side of the site to screen the device from neighbors and paint the back of the solar panels green.

"We're getting elderly," Eigner said. "We're concerned about planting trees. We're already watering too many (required by a previous Architectural Committee)." And, he added, painting the back of the panels would have voided the warranty unless it was done professionally.

Both requirements would have raised the cost of the system 15 percent, he estimated.

The Eigners decided to fight back. On March 18, they brought about 30 like-minded friends — including some neighbors — with them to an ECIA board meeting where they asked for reconsideration of the committee's recommendation. There was some impassioned speachifying, Eigner said. The final vote was 2-1 in their favor, with director Pat Lavengood maintaining that some kind of screening should be required.

The Architectural Committee later resigned, but the new committee, chaired by Katherine Mortimer, is believed to be more pro-solar.

Eigner said his system, which went on line in April, is doing the job. He has eight panels rated at 215 watts each for a total of 1.7 kilowatt-hours. At this time of year, it produces 10 percent to 20 percent more energy than he and his wife use. All of the electricity goes into PNM's power grid. "If there's a power failure, we're out of luck, too," Eigner said.

There are two meters on his property, one measures his household use, and the other displays what the solar array produces. (One is always moving forward, one backward.) The Eigners have no electricity bill and actually receive a monthly check from PNM for about $50 which reflects the excess energy they provide to the grid.

The system cost about $20,000, Eigner said, adding that the tracking mechanism, which follows the sun, almost pays for itself because it means he has to deploy fewer solar panels.

When he files his taxes next April, Eigner will take advantage of federal (30 percent of the cost of the installed system) and state (10 percent) tax credits. "That's a big factor" in the couple's decision to install the tracker, Eigner said, "but it will take a number of years before we can use that many tax credits." Fortunately, he'll be able to carry them over to subsequent years.

The Eigners were not, however, able to take advantage of the county's plan for a special renewable-energy tax assessment district. It's stalled because of questions from the federal home loan programs about whether such schemes add risks to mortgage underwriting. Once established, homeowners would be able to apply for low-interest, long-term loans to install solar, wind or geothermal energy systems and pay them back through property taxes.

But the good news is that because the Eigners have a multi-year contract to deliver power to PNM, they will not be affected by the utility's plan to reduce by a penny the price it pays to owners of residential solar energy systems (currently about 13 cents per kilowatt hour).

'The right thing to do'

As concern over America's reliance on fossil fuels rises, many homeowners are looking at the virtues of installing solar collectors. There are at least four pole-mounted arrays in Eldorado and many panels installed on roofs of homes.

Aimee Canby and her husband installed the first solar tracker in Eldorado without filing an application to the Architectural Committee because they didn't believe they were legally required to do so. "We don't consider it a structure," she said. "It's not a shed and shouldn't be treated as one." And their neighbors said it didn't bother them.

After the tracker was up and working, Canby said, the couple was asked to apply for a variance, which was approved by the Architectural Committee, although, "They still want us to put up some expensive trees," such as tall Austrian pines to screen the device.

For Larry Eccard, a retired airline pilot, the process went smoothly, perhaps because he decided he would face too much opposition to a pole-mounted array and chose to place his collectors on the ground. Instead of being "up in the air and in everybody's face, ours is hidden, down low," he said. Last fall, an installer helped him select a site on his property on Altura Road in Eldorado and recommended a system that would produce a little more electricity than what his household was consuming.

He said he was expecting the worst when he went to the ECIA's Architectural Committee armed with Google Earth pictures showing the site where he planned to mount two dozen 210-watt panels in two rows between his house and a greenbelt, an area, he said, that was doing nothing but growing weeds.

The committee approved the plan and installation began within weeks.

The system cost a little over $33,000, he said. Although the installer estimated that it would pay for itself in 8-10 years, he thinks that's a bit optimistic. But, he said, "I don't care. I don't plan on moving from here and it felt like the right thing to do."

And, he said, he got a check from PNM last week for $117 and that "does feel good."

The ECIA's Donohue said that he expected in time the solar arrays will become more manageable in size and "not big billboards in our faces." But until then, the community will be trying to ensure that "everyone is on the same page."

Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or aconstable@sfnewmexican.com.