Sierra Club Official Praises City's Response to High Solar Fees

A recent study published by the Sierra Club, which found commercial solar permit fees in Sierra Madre to be among the highest in the county, caused the city council to schedule a discussion on the high fees for a future meeting.

In a , that decision was hailed by the Sierra Club's Kurt Newick as "great," and an example of how other cities should respond to the study and subsquent media coverage.

According to Newick, the appropriate level is whatever that city needs to recover their costs. He said that $200 to $350 for residential projects and $300 to $3,000 for commercial projects would be appropriate, depending on the size of the project.

Currently, Sierra Madre's fees for commercial solar installations are much higher than most of the other cities surveyed.

But in the San Marino Patch article, Newick praised cities like Sierra Madre that have or are their permit fees.

Recently, a after stories in Patch and other sources about San Marino's and other city’s high fees were published.

“I think Sierra Madre looking at lowering their commercial rates is great,” said Newick. “At some point in the next few years there’s going to be a crossover into grid parody, where solar will be less expensive than traditional energy, in which case there will be a lot more people installing small and large solar systems.”

For that to happen, however, Newick said that it’s really crucial and even required that local jurisdictions compliment state and federal solar incentives by having reasonable permit processes and fees so they’re not a bottleneck to getting solar systems installed in their cities.

“The city and an independent entity needs to scrutinize how long the evaluations are taking and how much time is supposedly needed right now to approve a permit in San Marino,” said Newick. “Someone needs to take a closer look at that.”

Newick also mentioned that there are other organizations looking to standardize guidelines, such as the LA Basin Chapter of the International Code Council, that will enable all cities in LA County to have a streamlined solar permit submittal process and lower their fees. Osama Younan, an inspector who works for the City of Los Angeles, is working on permit guidelines for all LA County cities.

“They’re trying to standardize what these permits look like in order to get them done more accurately and to lower costs,” said Newick. "That’s really going to be the solution here.”