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with the system to the surrounding ~ropT es• I Qr This change will allow staff to review each proposal on a case by case basis and not automatically prohibit certain types of solar energy systems and will allow staff to take into account individual circumstances. Please let me know if you have any questions. Pat Patrick Trudgeon, AICP City of Roseville Community Development Director 2660 Civic Center Drive Roseville, MN 55113 (651) 792-7071 (651) 792-7070 (fax) mat trudgeonCc~ci.roseville.mn.us wvwv.ci.roseville.mn.us _J __. ~~.~------__-._r__..----.._ _ _.._.__ _ -_ -------- From: Weum, Susan (MPAU) [mailto:susan.weum@smiths-medical.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 1:27 PM To: *RVCouncil Subject: Solar permitting and Resolution Dear Mayor Klausing and Honorable Members of Roseville City Council, I am grateful that Roseville is finding a way to allow solar systems without waiting for the zoning ordinance updates! The proposed Resolution regarding solar installations is much appreciated, and does make the letter I wrote to City Council Members on April 15th lag quite a bit behind your accomplishments. With one exception (which might apply to our proposed system) the Resolution looks wonderful to me. Section C.2 speaks to systems which are "visible from the nearest edge of the street frontage right-of-way" and requires that these systems have a pitch that roughly matches the roof and is no higher than 10 inches above the roof. The visibility of our proposed system from the street will be v r minimal at most-I'm doubtful the panels will be visible unless someone is really looking as they will be set back from the South edge of our roof by a few feet-only a small corner of one or two panels might be seen. I hope they will meet the intent of the Resolution. Because the roofline of our addition runs North-South, those panels on the addition would be tilted to face south and would not match the roof line of our addition within 5%. You can see a photo of what a tilted panel looks like on the 2nd photo from the top at http~//www powerfullygreen.com/projects (Powerfully Green is the solar installer we've chosen). The furthest left panel in the photo is tilted to face south along the long edge; ours would be tilted to face south along the short edge, which would raise one corner about 2 feet above the roof of the addition. The addition roof is lower than our main roof. No panels will be seen above our main roof. One other comment is that the requirement for `matching the slope of the roof & no higher than 10 inches above the roof' and 'systems with a pitch more than five percent greater than the roof pitch are not allowed' would effectively eliminate most roof-mounted solar thermal installations. Solar thermal panels require a fairly steep angle for effective collection. Even if mounted on the roof in the rear of the house they are usually visible from the street. Good photos of this are here: http~//ips-solar com/recentproiects.html 2nd here http~//ips-solar com/PGResidential.html .This is not an issue for our proposed installation but it certainly is for two of our neighbors who already have solar thermal installations and one of our neighbors who wants to add a system for solar thermal in the future. It also doesn't appear to apply in other area communities where these solar thermal systems are located. Though I fully realize Roseville does not need to conform to what other cities do, wouldn't it be nice to encourage solar as much as our neighboring communities do? Is it possible that those few sentences could be reviewed?