
San Francisco Is Requiring Solar Panels on All New Buildings - uptown
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/san-francisco-require-solar-panels-buildings
======
eldavido
Partner is an architect in SF (works on 2nd St.)

She's currently dealing with two overlapping regulations, one from the state,
the other from the city: (1) All electrical outlets must be placed less than
18 inches from the edge of a countertop, to make them accessible to people in
wheelchairs

(2) A countertop must have an outlet every 18 inches, or less.

They're getting held up in permitting because there is a no constructible
L-shaped countertop that satisfies both of these constraints. The best part,
nobody on either side seems to care much, they're "just doing their job"...and
housing isn't getting built.

I'm not sure what to make of this, other than that it's the newest brilliant
"innovation" from the place that banned happy meal toys, and outlawed plastic
bags.

~~~
mturmon
I'd say this is more of a city planning office problem than a "paternalistic
California" problem.

The plastic bag ban caused much gnashing of teeth, but it was a basic instance
of market failure (nobody pays for the externalities of bag pollution), and
people have adapted fine since the ban took effect.

You see the kind of standards worship that you described in the LA city
planning office as well as SF. There will be swearing up and down that this
requirement is in place for a solid reason, and then in 5 years the
requirement disappears.

Runoff from buildings is my favorite example: a few years ago, you had to
ensure rainwater runoff from new structures was conveyed to the street. By
pumping it uphill if necessary. You signed a document promising to maintain
the pump in perpetuity. (Reason: your runoff could damage nearby properties.)
Now, you _can 't_ pump runoff to the street, you have to sequester some on-
site. (Reason: drought, plus, city can't treat all that water itself.)

Another instance of this is installation of crosswalks. One year, the city
refuses to put in new crosswalks because "it will encourage unsafe crossings".
Next year, city is putting in new crosswalks all over because it will
encourage pedestrian activity, make citizens healthier, etc.

~~~
SilasX
>The plastic bag ban caused much gnashing of teeth, but it was a basic
instance of market failure (nobody pays for the externalities of bag
pollution), and people have adapted fine since the ban took effect.

But the ban caused much, much more damage than needed to remedy the
externality. If mispricing were the problem being solved, they could slap an
appropriate tax on the stores' bags, and then stores would pay it, fold it
into prices, implement policies to discourage too many bags, roll their eyes,
and move on.

Instead, the bag law means they must _explicitly_ charge the customer for
bags; they can't just absorb it into prices (as every store did before).

(And I don't know if you've ever worked as a cashier, but adding another step
to every transaction gets old really quick, and holding up a line so someone
can dig for a dime because they forgot to ask for one the first time around is
ridiculous.)

Furthermore, ten cents is (by any reasonable back-of-the-envelope measure) far
more than the magnitude of the externality, and it's not put into a fund to
remedy the externaliites, nor can I get the ten cents back when I redeem it
and thereby prove that it's not going into some bird's lungs.

This is just like most hastily-considered conservation policies: penny-wise
and pound foolish. I'm likewise hounded to cut back on showers, despite them
producing far more economic value than uses of water that are basically value-
destructive (growing alfalfa) and which get a free pass. Similarly, I get paid
_nothing_ for having an ultra-low-carbon lifestyle, while people get large
government subsidies to make their already-wasteful lifestyle a little less
so.

Yes, it sucks when externalities aren't priced in. But we shouldn't use that
justification as carte blanche to overcharge for the wrong ones.

~~~
jdblair
The point is to encourage you to bring your own bag, eliminating a disposable
bag from use. To do that you have to charge explicitly for it.

~~~
maxerickson
It's kind of ironic, plastic bags probably have one of the lower environmental
impacts of all the things one might find in a grocery store.

I mean, most people burn more fuel driving to the store than they use plastic
bags in a year (a gallon of gasoline is about 6 pounds), but we don't have a
'combine trips' awareness campaign.

~~~
krisdol
Germany has been charging for bags at the store for at least 25 years. I don't
understand how Americans have so much trouble with the most inconsequential of
amenities they are asked to provide the environment.

~~~
maxerickson
You're shoving words in my mouth. I don't care about bag taxes, I think it's
stupid we pay so much attention to them and ignore things that are far more
harmful. And we do ignore them, so it's not simply a case of being able to do
both, the bags really do seem to be capturing attention from more pressing
issues.

~~~
KirinDave
Why shouldn't we pay attention to them as well as the larger things?
Especially in America where the harsh reality is were going to have to change
our lifestyles a lot over the next 50 years, boiling the frog is probably the
best way to keep everyone calm.

I mean, water alone is going to be a major issue for California.

~~~
maxerickson
I think it is pretty clear that energy is going to get cheaper and cleaner.
This helps a lot with household water use (agricultural volumes are still
pretty expensive).

Figuring out how to make the benefits of the growing economy more widely
available seems like a pretty big problem, but I don't think that consumption
in the US will have to decrease in any meaningful way.

------
davidw
Simply allowing more density would be a greener plan:
[http://www.vox.com/2016/4/20/11467110/san-francisco-solar-
de...](http://www.vox.com/2016/4/20/11467110/san-francisco-solar-density)

~~~
saosebastiao
Even the most progressive cities will not go after the big progressive wins,
preferring token measures. Hence, huge advertising campaigns promoting earth
hour, but never ever ever in a million years will they touch the gas tax or
increase allowable density or stop subsidizing parking.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Paul Krugman once called elevators "the most efficient mass-transit system
ever designed."

~~~
rsync
Related:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central%E2%80%93Mid-
Levels_esc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central%E2%80%93Mid-
Levels_escalator_and_walkway_system)

~~~
morgante
That was my immediate thought as well. Just one of the many things which makes
HK my favorite city in the world.

------
eldavido
Another thing: this is why we (tech) need to engage with politics.

If there's one thing we really understand, it's _complexity_ : why it sucks,
how to avoid it, and how piling on rule after rule can make the legal code
"unmaintainable" (sound familiar?)

~~~
matt4077
It's also the reason why tech people shouldn't be so dismissive of
politicians, lawyers or the social sciences: they've been wrangling this shit
for hundreds of years.

~~~
quanticle
Yet somehow despite wrangling with it for hundreds of years, they manage to do
a worse job than most entry-level programmers.

~~~
jdmichal
Let's see how well _any_ programmer, much less an entry-level one, handles an
indeterminate execution environment... It's like C++, except every line has
potentially undefined behavior.

~~~
humanrebar
> It's like C++, except every line has potentially undefined behavior.

...but you repeat yourself.

How many production C++ programs have absolutely zero undefined behavior?

------
anxman
I live in SF and I'm active in the real estate businesses too. While on the
surface, this seems like great news it comes with hidden negative
externalities. Specifically, this law benefits existing owners who will be
grandfathered out of this requirement.

Any new builder will see her housing development costs go up, and given the
short supply of housing, will then cause RE prices to go up on all new
housing. This system therefore benefits existing landowners who were able to
reap higher gains on existing buildings and helps create a moat on new housing
development by making it less financially lucrative.

Also, just in case anybody is curious, most solar panels are not a good
economic investment for an investor. In an optimistic case, they may pay for
themselves in 7-10 years but the value of the asset itself depreciates so
quickly that it isn't worth the risk financially or in on-going maintenance
costs.

~~~
rconti
True, but 15% of the roof in PV is a trivial cost, particularly on a multi-
story building in SF.

------
geebee
For the cost of these solar panels, what else could we be doing to reduce
carbon emissions? Here in SF or internationally?

I do think that carbon reduction is pretty essential, but it's so essential
that I don't think we can waste our money on low yield actions. I'm not saying
this strictly is, I'd have to read about it more, but I'm not optimistic that
mandating very specific technologies will be a good approach.

~~~
thescriptkiddie
The solar panels are effectively free, because they will pay for themselves in
energy savings long before the building owners have paid off their
mortgage/recouped their investment. However, increasing the cost of streetside
parking would be actually free (to those that don't own cars) and have a much
greater impact on local air quality. Nothing is stopping the city from doing
both.

~~~
geebee
Kind of odd, though - if the panels will so clearly pay for themselves, why
did they have to be mandated? Just to be clear, it isn't a purely rhetorical
question - I suppose there's a chance that the people who have to pay the
upfront costs don't get to realize the savings (buyers don't always factor in
the savings, so construction companies may be reluctant to pay for them).
Alternatively, people will sometimes just stick with a very inefficient system
for a long time, never really getting around to it until they're prompted (by
a mandate or tax incentive). Sometimes this is because people are just unable
or reluctant to eat large upfront costs, other times it's something they've
intended to get around to for a long time but haven't taken the first step.

That said, I do think that if the cost of carbon emissions were genuinely
reflected in the price, all these specific technology mandates wouldn't be
necessary. I do understand that a single municipality is in no position to
make that happen, though.

~~~
jonknee
> Kind of odd, though - if the panels will so clearly pay for themselves, why
> did they have to be mandated?

Whoever builds the building isn't usually the one paying the electric bill.

~~~
knd775
But can't a cheaper electric bill be a selling point?

------
mc32
Scott is pretty reasonable, but in this case I think the whole supes went
overboard. I would have preferred a stipulation to make them solar ready,but
not outright installed. I feel that sometimes excitement and wanting to be
"leaders in x" gets the better of them, from time to time.

When I plan to buy a house I'll seriously consider installing solar, but id
almost want to tear down any installation forced on by the city. If it's your
property it should be up to you to consider what you want to add to your
domicile. Maybe I don't want the upfront cost of solar, or maybe I planned on
other renewables.

Put solar on all your city buses, put solar on all city buildings, etc. Don't
force solar on homeowners who never wanted it.

------
No1
The article makes it sound like the SF decided to set a goal of "100 percent
renewable energy by 2020" without a clue of how to achieve that goal - but gee
does it sound nice. Realizing that the city is not going to be able to fund
such an endeavor, they mandate the cost of deploying solar panels be passed on
to new development, completely disregarding the practicality of solar panels
on city buildings. Forget spending the money on better insulation, windows,
living roofs, wind power, heat pumps, grey water reclamation, etc. or just
making more badly-needed housing - the city needs solar because the word gives
people tingles and they have this arbitrary goal-without-a-plan.

------
haha1234
San Francisco why would anyone want to live there ... trashy, ridiculously
expensive, smell of homeless & downtrodden everywhere, the mentally ill with
megaphones shouting their crazy on the streets.

I've lived in many US cities and WoW San Fran is a shock to the system!

~~~
randyrand
Because that's where a lot of jobs are. Its next to this part of the country
called silicon valley. A lot of the tech industry is there.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley)

------
matt_wulfeck
At first I liked the idea, but then I remembered what a beuacratic and hostile
nightmare it is to build in San Francisco (and CA in genera) and quickly
turned against it.

Would it not have been sufficient to offer tax incentive carrots instead of
making it a requirement?

------
jkot
Serious question: how many new buildings are started in SF per year?

~~~
dkopi
Semi serious answer: clearly not enough to meet the demand.

------
moultano
New buildings? In San Francisco?

~~~
6stringmerc
Not to belittle the catastrophic potential outcome, but the city is quite in a
precarious spot vis-a-vis tectonic plates, which may result in new
construction opportunities in time.

~~~
davidw
A lot of stuff not up to standard got knocked down in 1989.

~~~
sbov
Only the most vulnerable. The 1989 epicenter was around Santa Cruz. Something
similar to the 1906 earthquake would be probably be very bad.

~~~
6stringmerc
That's more what I had in mind. I'm not into reading historical events as
absolute predictors - but when I came across a mention that both Ecuador and
Japan had seismic events before the 1906 quake in SF...that got my attention
up. Over a decade ago I took an absolutely fascinating Earthquakes and
Volcanoes course from an 'industry pro' who was doing Adjunct work between
gigs - he specialized in diamond and oil/gas deposit work. As in, seismic
events would enable him to study new developments and discover pockets for
potential recovery operations. His love of his science was contagious and I've
held his fearful respect for the Earh's tectonic system ever since.

------
guimarin
This is pretty typical of SF. Try and solve a problem they are not well suited
to solve at the city level. SF has a ton of Fog, building solar panels would
not be as beneficial to the city as increasing density and allowing people to
have roof-decks.

Another great example is homelessness. Homelessness is actually something
which should be addressed at the Federal (for Veterans) and State (for people
who should receive medical help) levels, not the city. Oh well.

The end result of this solar initiative will be to increase costs for the
poor. The 'real' solution is for CA gov't to stipulate that all dwellings of X
and Y quality that receive Z amounts of sunlight are required to offset A% of
their annual energy consumption with Solar/wind energy. You can either build
it on your own home or buy a share in a solar/wind farm.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
While I agree that this is perhaps a symbolic gesture at best, one can’t claim
that costs are being “increased for the poor” when this will only apply to new
buildings which are certainly not being built by or rented to “the poor”

~~~
bryanlarsen
New buildings for rich people lower prices for everybody. Apartments are
fairly fungible: if nice apartments aren't available, rich people rent not-so-
nice apartments, pushing up the prices of those.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
My favorite misconception!

Here in Ithaca NY, Collegetown used to be a sleepy neighborhood of large
divided houses rented to Cornell students.

About 20 years ago they began densifying like crazy. 2-3 story houses for 8
people became 8-floor apartments and studios. And you know what? Rent is
higher than ever! Everywhere!

Once you build up you can charge higher rents, which means the landlord next
door can charge slightly higher rents, and so on.

Building housing almost never lowers rents for the non-rich, unless there is a
massive recession (Florida), or an equivalent rise in wages. People build
dense housing because they expect people to keep coming...

~~~
guimarin
This is wrong. Both the students at Cornell and Ithaca university got
wealthier, and more people moved to the area/stayed as a result of the schools
expanding over the last 20 years. There was a natural increase in demand,
which resulted in new construction, and which ALSO resulted in higher rents.
If housing in Ithaca had kept up with demand prices would not have exceeded
inflation and quality of the unit.

~~~
Alex3917
> Both the students at Cornell and Ithaca university got wealthier, and more
> people moved to the area/stayed as a result of the schools expanding over
> the last 20 years.

Evidence? In the last ten years the typical apartment in Ithaca has gone from
$550/mo to $1500/mo, which seems far in excess of the extra 1,500 people or so
spread across the city, especially given they've been building new apartments
like crazy the entire time.

~~~
LanceH
So you're saying supply went up and they just started charging more and got
it?

~~~
Alex3917
Well that's what I was trying to figure out, but as far as I can see (based on
a quick look at their population growth figures) that's basically what
happened.

------
blisterpeanuts
Seems like a good idea to have solar on every building, but I have to ask: how
many new buildings go up in SF in a year?

I thought the problem was that they have a lot of architecture preservation
and not enough new office and residential construction.

Similar to Boston and Manhattan, mature cities where there isn't that much new
construction, so this kind of ordinance seems more symbolic than practical.

------
pascalxus
Just wonderful. Another housing regulation which will further disencentivize a
greater housing supply.

------
bcheung
Not that San Francisco has any room for new buildings but this smells like
crony capitalism. Which solar panel company lobbied to have this become law?
And which politician is getting the kickback?

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im_down_w_otp
Wouldn't that first require San Francisco to allow building new buildings?

Bad-um-tsch!

:-D ;-)

------
cavisne
So how does this work for apartments? Normally apartments dont bother as the
homeowners get almost no benefit (small roof relative to the power usage), and
net metering shared solar panels is tricky, way to tricky for a utility to
care. So who bears the cost of this?

That said might be a huge opportunity for a microgrid company to set up
panels, smart meters and batteries in buildings, and then just have a single
meter at the perimeter.

------
almost_usual
Makes sense in a place like San Francisco. One good hail storm in the Midwest
and you'd have a lot of broken solar panels.

~~~
erehweb
Googling "Does hail break solar panels" casts doubt on that.

~~~
almost_usual
Hail comes in a lot of sizes.

------
pmyjavec
It makes me laugh the US Government is doing so little on climate change that
local Goverments now have to protect their own cities.

Remember when Calirofrnia sued the US Government over climate change? They've
been doing a whole lot of not much for some time.

------
No1
A link to the actual legislation:

[https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=4399794&GUID=FE2...](https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=4399794&GUID=FE220DFF-2C3F-4F0B-8C9B-39F1A61039F2)

------
wrsh07
It only applies to buildings with 10 or fewer floors. Do you think this will
just encourage new ~10 story buildings to instead be >= 11 stories?

------
akerro
Which senator has some shares in a business?

~~~
tanderson92
Only the Feinest?

------
beaud
If you're interested in solar and our renewable energy future, we're hiring
full-stack engineers at Wunder Capital (TS'14)

Learn more here:
[https://www.wundercapital.com/](https://www.wundercapital.com/)

------
sebringj
Isn't this good news for Tesla's giga factory?

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maxschumacher91
lucky for them that nobody is building in SF.

------
resonanttoe
So... no new solar panels for SF then?

------
ZoF
Agreed, I can barely stand those churlish wasteful Americans and their
unwillingness to offer our environment it's well deserved 'amenities'.

Nevermind that the parent poster wasn't saying anything negative about this
policy besides that it detracts interest/investment in rectifying issues that
would have a far larger environmental impact for a lower price.

The relevant facts here: America is bad and Americans hate the environment.
Let's invest in the basic environmental amenities guys!

25 years ago? Lets go even further into the past with our nationality shaming.
Let's draw some other parallels from Germany's wonderful past actions.

Americans have a lot to learn.

~~~
ZoF
Anyone care to substantiate these downvotes?

It's ok for the parent commenter to say all American's are anti-environmental
and have 'issues defending the environment' but it's not ok for me to defend
the original opine that this wasn't a 'pro-plastic-bag' argument but rather a
'pro-efficacious-solutions' argument?

Why. Please elucidate me.

This has nothing to do with America or Germany. This is about what is best for
this planet and I strongly disagree with the parent posters anti-nationalism.
This isn't an issue with 'America' alone.

~~~
plandis
You're getting downvoted because you're not contributing to the discussion and
nobody is commenting because (I'm guessing here) everything thinks that this
is a troll post. Just in case it isn't here is some stuff to keep in mind for
the future:

> Agreed, I can barely stand those churlish wasteful Americans and their
> unwillingness to offer our environment it's well deserved 'amenities'. The
> relevant facts here: America is bad and Americans hate the environment.
> Let's invest in the basic environmental amenities guys!

Insulting 300+ million people without any substantiated data is not the way to
influence others or to contribute. Insulting others simply makes people want
to disengage in conversation with you.

This is especially true since this post and this side conversation are about
how SF _has_ adopted plastic-bag policies and solar panel policies. Insulting
people for not caring about the environment in the same discussion where the
topic is a discussion about how a major city trying to do something about the
problem really has no benefit. Even in the face of conflicting definitive data
you still choose to stereotype everyone. It's unclear how you are hoping to
advance the conversation.

I'd recommend the following if you really do want people to listen to what
you're trying to say (if that truly was your point):

1.) Never just attack a person/group/whatever you will never win people over
by doing so. Attacking someone simply shows others that you are not interested
in hearing what they have to say.

2.) If you're trying to make an argument then before you say anything you
should figure out why people hold the beliefs they do. Until you can
understand (however appropriate or misguided it may be) the other side, you
should not say a thing.

3.) If you're trying to make an argument then provide compelling data to back
up your claims. You must provide this data in a way that the other side can
understand and how it relates to their own beliefs. You cannot successfully do
this until you have accomplished 2.

~~~
ZoF
Genuinely surprised anyone could read my original comment as anything other
than sarcasm.

Who says churlish.

Meh. Maybe it was a troll. Well deserved downvotes.

------
arrty88
great for my solr stocks

------
henvic
Sttatism.

------
nkrisc
Oh, I get it. People can live on top of the solar panels.

------
djschnei
Definitely within the reasonable bounds of what local government can demand
with the threat of violence. How progressive of them.

