The following is the long version of a letter to the editor of the Portsmouth Herald which appeared in the April 24, 2024 edition of that paper. Herald editor-in-chief Howard Altschiller is always yelling at me because my letters to the editor are too long for the Herald’s tastes, and so I had to trim it way down.
Here is the full-length version:
To the Editor:
It’s always a little bit unusual whenever I agree with Historic District Commissioners Martin Ryan, Jon Wyckoff, and Reagan Ruedig about anything, but I do agree with them this time. I think that the proposal to strip the Historic District Commission of its jurisdiction over solar panels is a decidedly bad idea, and I urge that it be rejected.
The way I see it, either you’re committed to historic preservation, or you’re not. If you are, then, like anything else, historic preservation has its price. Sacrifices have to be made, and costs have to be paid. One of those costs is that solar panels have to go–or, at least, their use has to be carefully scrutinized and sparingly allowed–for they are fundamentally inconsistent with the character of the historic district, particularly the South End.
You wouldn’t install solar panels in the historic buildings in Old Colonial Williamsburg. You wouldn’t put them in the historic homes at Plimouth Plantation, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. You wouldn’t put them in the old Spanish buildings in “America’s first city,” St. Augustine, Florida. So, why would you put them in Portsmouth’s historic district?
Speaking for myself, I have no hesitation in saying that if it comes down to a choice between preserving Portsmouth’s historic character and promoting green energy, I choose the former over the latter, and green energy will simply have to take a back seat. (Perhaps it is worth noting that the sponsor of the proposal to take away the HDC’s authority over solar panels, City Councilor Josh Denton, has performed precisely the same analysis that I have, but he comes out the other way. To him, historic preservation is not so important.) My stance is informed by the simple fact that even if solar panels were installed in literally every home in the entire city of Portsmouth, it wouldn’t amount to so much as a drop in the bucket in terms of implementing renewable energy nationally or solving the worldwide problem of climate change. In my book, the violence that will be done to Portsmouth’s historic charm and character if solar panels are allowed willy-nilly is much too high a price to pay for the pittance that will be accomplished in terms of saving the environment.
The existing system for overseeing the use of solar panels, in which the Historic District Commission entertains applications for their use on a case-by-case basis, has generally worked well over the years, and there is little reason to change it. I have it on excellent authority from a former HDC member that that board has had more or less an unwritten, unspoken policy that if you won’t be able to see the solar panels from the front of the house, approval will generally be granted, whereas if they are going to be visible from the street or the sidewalk then approval will usually be denied. Such an approach strikes a reasonable balance between historic preservation and renewable energy, and I think that it should continue.
In addition, having watched the videos of a few HDC meetings in which the approval of solar panels was being sought, I see that the manufacturers of those articles claim that technology has now reached the point where it is possible to fabricate solar panels which are indistinguishable from ordinary roofing shingles and other roofing materials. If indeed this is so, then I have no problem with it. The argument could be made that there is still a slight insult to the spirit of the Historic District Ordinance when inauthentic building materials are used in historic homes, but if you literally can’t tell the difference by looking at them then the balance tips much more in favor of promoting renewable energy. Either way, however, I think that the Historic District Commission should still be the umpire who calls the balls and strikes and decides whether the panels should be allowed in specific instances.
After all, the Historic District Commission is the body that is charged with responsibility for ensuring that the erection, demolition, or modification of buildings within the historic district is consistent with the character of that district, and I think that it should continue to be the one that decides whether solar panels are appropriate in a given case. Theoretically, the HDC is composed of members who are committed to historic preservation and who also possess a measure of expertise in the subject–or, at least, so says the applicable enabling statute, RSA 673:4, II–and I think that those members should continue to be allowed to use and apply that expertise. If they are not the ones best qualified to say whether solar panels are compatible with the character of the setting in a particular case, then who is?
I say this not without a touch of irony, for I am certainly no admirer of the job that the HDC has done over the course of the last fifteen years. In fact, I think that its performance has been terrible. It has allowed developer Mark McNabb to get whatever he wants and do whatever he wants; it approved the size and design of the grotesque monstrosity that he has erected on Penhallow Street, which is totally out of character with its surroundings; and it approved the desecration of the Treadwell House, at the corner of Court and Pleasant Streets, which is one of Portsmouth’s truly historic structures. Moreover, these are merely two of the more egregious recent examples. It makes you wonder why we even bother having a Historic District Commission in the first place.
Nevertheless, as the body that is charged with responsibility for preserving, protecting, and defending the historic charm and character of Portsmouth’s historic district, I think it far better that the HDC retain the power to review applications for the installation of solar panels on a case-by-case basis and to disapprove them where they would be inappropriate, rather than that there be a flat fiat against the HDC’s having any role in determining whether solar panels would be compatible with their surroundings in specific instances, as Councilor Denton has proposed. If the HDC is doing a poor job in this role, being either too liberal or too stringent in granting the use of such panels, or if it is falling down on the job in any other respect, then the solution is not to scuttle the entire system of adjudicating applications for solar panels, but to replace the existing members of the HDC with new and better members as the incumbents’ terms of office expire. When Rick Becksted was Portsmouth’s mayor, the four commissioners whom he appointed to the HDC had intellect, good judgment, and a genuine commitment to historic preservation. (The appointees of Mayor Deaglan McEachern and former mayor Jack Blalock, not so much.) I was particularly delighted at the reinstatement of David Adams to the HDC, where he belongs, after a long and unfortunate hiatus. Karen Bouffard was another excellent choice, and Dan Brown and Margot Doering seem to have good heads on their shoulders, based on to my observations. However, I have no praise for any of the others.
One thing is for sure: the alternative proffered by Councilor Denton in his proposed amendment to the Historic District Ordinance is no improvement. He proposes that the authority for adjudicating requests for the installation of solar panels be transferred from the HDC to a code official of the City of Portsmouth (meaning, the planning director or the chief building inspector, according to the definitions in the ordinance). However, that “solution” strikes me as being a mere change for change’s sake and sideways movement, not forward progress. There is no reason to believe that a decision by the planning director or the building inspector on a particular application for the use of solar panels will be any better than a decision generated by the collective wisdom of the seven members of the Historic District Commission. It is no more likely that the HDC will disapprove a good project, or approve a bad one, than will the planning director or the building inspector, and it is probably less so. For one thing, the planning director and the building inspector are not particularly invested in historic preservation, and they are unlikely to have the same sensitivity to the potential impact of the proposed solar panels on Portsmouth’s historic character that the members of the HDC do.
Moreover, to cite the buzzword which is currently in fashion, transferring the authority to approve or disapprove solar panels from the HDC to the planning director or the building inspector will result in a lack of “accountability,” and decisions by the latter are more likely to be arbitrary and inconsistent. The members of the HDC are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council, and their appointments are for terms of three years. They are accountable to the mayor and the members of the City Council, who in turn are accountable to the voters. The planning director and the building inspector, by contrast, are answerable to no one but the city manager. Presumably, one of the main purposes of having an autonomous Historic District Commission, separate from and unaffiliated with the Planning Department, is to have an independent body composed mostly of ordinary citizens who, at least theoretically, have a special commitment to historic preservation and a measure of expertise in the subject. This detachment, objectivity, and expertise will be compromised or lost if authority over solar panels is transferred to a salaried employee of the City.
The case which served as the cause célèbre for Councilor Denton’s proposal to divest the HDC of authority over solar panels was the application to install them in the property at 180 New Castle Avenue. However, that application presented a close case. The vote to deny the application was 4-3, and there were legitimate arguments to be made on both sides of the issue. Under the plan presented, you wouldn’t have been able to see the solar panels from the front of the house, but they would have been clearly visible to one or more of the neighbors to the sides and rear. I would not quarrel with the four members of the Commission who voted to deny the property owner’s application, and I similarly would not quarrel with those who voted to approve it. There was ample ground for reasonable difference of opinion.
For the same reason that you don’t abolish jury trials because a jury occasionally renders a bizarre verdict every now and then, you don’t dismantle a system for land use administration that has generally worked well over the years merely because of one (allegedly) bad decision. To rescind the HDC’s authority over solar panels merely because one disgruntled property owner, who fancied herself to be aggrieved, was unusually loud and public in voicing her complaints is an impetuous, unthinking, knee-jerk reaction to the sound of the proverbial squeaky wheel, and it is a short-sighted and shallow-minded solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And the system for determining whether and when solar panels are to be allowed in the historic district ain’t broke. Councilor Denton’s proposal to withdraw the Historic District Commission’s jurisdiction over solar panels is a bad one, and I urge that it be rejected.
Duncan J. MacCallum
