Our friendly HOA came back to us, on our solar application, and said, “sure, you can install solar, so long as it’s not visible from the street.” after 20 minutes of sort of trying to persuade the board member that that request would be hard to fulfill, and going nowhere, I hung up. That was impossible I thought. How could I *know* that the panels wouldn’t be visible until I installed them? The board rep wasn’t real sympathetic – the board wasn’t showing any flexibility, their focus was aesthetics here, 100%. I was baffled. In this time, how could anyone put aesthetics over energy conservation? I, as a homeowner, was looking to invest a substantial amount of money in a renewable energy system that would not just be a little bit “green,” but would make my home nearly 80% able to generate it’s own electricity. The board didn’t want to hear, they offered me to come to the next meeting, in a month, but by then, I’d be that much more frustrated over their stance.
The next day, I put a call into my solar installer, mostly to make sure I could get my deposit back 
But also, I wanted them to help me ensure that the panels wouldn’t be visible. That wouldn’t be necessary! Ben Griffin, at Namaste, called me the next day to let me know that while he didn’t want my relationship with the HOA board to get acrimonious, that the law had already ruled in this matter and that the HOA had not a leg to stand on. There is a Colorado state statue forbidding HOA’s from blocking solar installations due to aesthetic concerns! Here’s the statue: http://viewer.zoho.com/docs/tduz0. Man, this was a sweet sweet feeling! It looks like we’re 100% back on track, the permit for the install has been submitted, once that is set, we’re on our way.
