HOA Put 60 Solar Panels on My Land — Then the Utility Asked, “Who Authorized This?”
Chapter 4
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Diesel exhaust hung low in the cool air. A skid steer idled beside a trailer of galvanized steel posts, and a worker in a hard hat watched the auger bring damp earth to the surface. Where cattle had been grazing, tires had made the first pair of deep tracks. A roll of temporary fencing lay across the grass like a promise nobody had asked me to make.I parked outside the work area and walked toward the man holding a clipboard. "What are you installing?" I asked.He glanced at me, surprised but not defensive. "Solar racking. Six rows, ten modules to a row.""Here?"He looked down at the drawing clipped to his board. "That's the location we were given. Are you with the association?""No. I'm the man who owns the pasture under your boots."The worker stopped moving his pen. For a second he looked past me toward the cattle, then at the fence, then toward a truck bearing the contractor's name. He did not challenge me. He said he needed to get his supervisor, which was the first response that made sense all morning.A foreman came over, introduced himself as Lewis, and showed me a project cover sheet with the Ridgeview Homeowners Association logo printed at the top. He had a schedule, a purchase order, and a map. He did not have a deed, an easement, a landowner consent form, or any explanation for why the site boundary seemed to follow the contractor's convenience rather than the fence. I told him the work appeared to be on private ranchland and asked him to stop until the title question could be checked.Lewis said he could pause his crew while he called the project manager, but he could not decide a property dispute from a field. I understood that. He had arrived with a plan and equipment, and the people paying him had represented that they could authorize the work. His workers were not surveyors or attorneys. I wrote down his name and his company's number, photographed the cover sheet with his permission, and waited while he made a call.The pause lasted about forty minutes. A couple of workers sat on an equipment trailer while the rest examined their tools, and I watched their schedule slipping away under a sky that was beginning to clear. Then Vanessa arrived in a black SUV, stepped out wearing a red blazer, and walked toward us with the expression of a woman who had received an irritating call about a resolved matter. She did not look at the cattle or the auger holes when she approached."Ethan," she said. "I hear you're interrupting the community energy project.""I'm asking why it's being built on my pasture.""The board authorized this installation to offset electricity for the clubhouse, pool equipment, irrigation pumps, and common areas. It's an important investment for the neighborhood.""That tells me what you want it to do. It doesn't tell me why it's here."