From the Palo Alto Daily News:

In Silicon Valley’s famous “trees vs. solar panels” battle, the trees have won.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill into law Tuesday that guarantees if California property owners plant a tree before a neighbor installs solar panels on their roof, then the neighbor can’t require the tree to be cut or trimmed, even if it grows to cast shade on the panels.

State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, wrote the bill in response to a Sunnyvale case that made national news and threatened to touch off statewide backyard battles as residential solar power installations grow in popularity. The bill, SB 1399, passed unanimously in the Assembly and Senate and was not opposed by the solar industry.

In the case, Richard Treanor and Carolynn Bissett of Sunnyvale were criminally prosecuted under an obscure 1970s law because redwood trees in their backyard cast a shadow over a neighbor’s solar panels.

The showdown began in 2001, when the neighbor, Mark Vargas, installed a 10-kilowatt solar system on his roof and on a 10-foot-high trellis in his back yard.

Vargas said he first asked Treanor and Bissett to chop down the eight redwoods the couple had planted from 1997 to 1999 along the fence separating their yards. The trees range are about 20 to 40 feet tall. Later, he asked them to trim the trees to about 15 feet high, even offering to pay the costs.

Treanor and Bissett said no. They said they liked the trees for privacy and noted the trees were there first.

They suggested Vargas move his solar panels, which make up an array three times the size of a typical home system. Vargas said doing so would reduce the amount of electricity they could generate for his five-bedroom home and electric car.

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