Survey: Area solar fees are too high

Shouldn't all permitting fees be simply a matter of recovering costs? Shouldn't we be encouraging building and development, restoration and renewal, redevelopment and beautification?

sounds like grand theif to me ....another way for the cities to get deeper into our pockets ....they have no reasonable fee charge in mind at all

Yep thats right Joe, the local cities have been gouging their citizens on solar permits big time! We in the solar industry have been complaining about it for a long time... to deaf ears at most cities. Thankfully, the word is now getting out and homeowners should be slamming their cities hard for taking them to the cleaners... likely, illegally too!

Joe, can you pass another hot topic on to a good investigative reporter covering Los Angeles. Believe it or not, but the second largest city in America has wittled down it's rebate admin staff to just one person. This is causing a 3 month delay in getting a rebate approval (which means a 3 month minimum delay in solar installation) AND they are taking 2 months to pay the rebate once the job is completed. That is a HUGE drag on solar installations in greater L.A.(anybody with LADWP for electrical service). It causes solar contractors not to want to service the area because of the time lag and cash flow problems. WHY????? is this happening??? Don't believe the hype about budgets. The inside story is that the IBEW has been trying to take over ALL solar electric installation in the state for several years now (which will increase costs dramatically). LADWP is controlled by the the IBEW. LADWP is getting ready to do their own commercial installations with all IBEW crews and they want as much rebate money as possible for them. So, they are bottlenecking rebates now for everybody else. The rebate money belongs to L.A. citizens but LADWP and the IBEW are doing what they can to cut off access. The mayor needs to put a stop to this. The solar department at LADWP needs to be staffed up NOW and the greedy honchos need to keep their hands off the people's rebate money!

I'm sure Edison is bribing local officials to make Solar is NOT worth anyone's while. Long Beach Mayor Fat Bob Foster used to RUN Edison, in case anyone forgot, so you know he's in their pocket.

Investigative reporter? The PT just reprinted the Sierra Club's press release. Did anyone check their methodology or has the media indeed decided that the Sierra Club and other environmental zealots are to be worshipped and not questioned? I think we know the answer.

Kurt Newick here, I am the one who is leading the Sierra Club Solar permit fee survey for Northern and Southern California (for the past several years, I am not a newby at this)...anyway for those who want more details, here is our Sierra Club, northern California solar permit fee web site that documents our process for our solar permit fee campaign:

http://lomaprieta.sierraclub.org/global_warmi...

View the "Study Methodology" for details on how we did our NorCal PV permit fee survey from the above web site with a specific link

We have even done a non-residential solar permit fee survey for some NorCal counties that may be of interest too...see:
http://lomaprietaglobalwarming.sierraclub.org...

Here is the web site with a brief description of our Sierra Club solar permit fee campaign for SoCal with a detailed report and a definitive PV permit fee comparison of southern California jurisdictions with specific recommendations for solar permitting is at: http://angeles.sierraclub.org/energy/pvfeerep...

We have verified the survey results for our recently published SoCal PV permit fee report with virtually all of the chief building officials for the 250 municipalities that we surveyed in Southern California!