HOA Put 60 Solar Panels on My Land — Then the Utility Asked, “Who Authorized This?”
Chapter 9
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"I don't want a fight," I said."Then keep the dispute narrow. You aren't objecting to solar energy, and you aren't claiming that a board may never approve an energy project. You're objecting to the use of this particular parcel without your authorization. That is understandable to anyone willing to look at a map."Her office sent the notice by email and tracked delivery, with hard copies following. Ryan acknowledged receipt. Vanessa replied that the association's counsel was reviewing my concerns, but she attached no deed, lease, easement, or other document showing a right to occupy the field. Naomi told me that was not an answer, and I agreed. It was a way to appear responsive without changing the one thing that mattered: work was continuing.On the fourth day I found my father in an old cardboard box. Not literally, of course, but I had forgotten how completely the right photograph could bring him into a room. I was looking for the original notes on a section of fence when I opened a box of ranch pictures, hay receipts, and small objects I had never been ready to throw away. Near the bottom was a photograph taken long before Ridgeview Court existed.He stood beside the north gate, one hand resting on the post and the other holding a long wrench. His shirt was dark with sweat, and behind him the field rose cleanly toward the distant skyline. There were no houses, no decorative stone walls, and no ornamental maples planted where natural grass had once reached the ridge. It was an ordinary photograph of a man at work, and for several minutes I could not put it down.My father was not sentimental about machinery. If a tractor stopped being useful, he repaired it or replaced it, whichever made sense. He was sentimental about people and perhaps, though he would not have admitted it, about places where their work remained visible after they were gone. He kept gates straight and fences mended because he knew somebody would have to live with the consequences of neglect.I carried the photograph outside and leaned against the same gate. The old post was still there, its upper edge scarred where my father's wrench had slipped once and left a mark. Downhill, newly mounted solar panels reflected the afternoon sun in dark, orderly strips. Uphill, Ridgeview Court watched over the installation like an audience that had ordered a performance and expected not to see the stage machinery.I could identify Vanessa's house from the gate. It sat near the crest of the ridge, behind a wide patio and a row of ornamental trees that had probably cost more to install than one of my pasture water tanks. A neighboring house had an outdoor kitchen, and another had a second-story deck facing south. The roofs were not the issue. People could enjoy their homes and their view without doing me any harm.