The act limits blocking access to solar collectors by trees on an adjacent property,[1] and formerly provided criminal penalties for violation.
The law was amended in 2009, allowing trees to remain, if they were planted before the solar collector was installed.
[2] In Culver City, California, a furniture and cabinet maker spent $80,000 in May 2006 on solar panels to reduce his electric bill.
The system worked well for two years, until his neighbor spent $60,000 to plant palm trees along the property line.
[3] In a 1986 dispute in involving two Stanford professors, the Court of Appeals of California, Sixth District ruled in Sher v. Leiderman that the law only applied to solar collectors, and not to homes designed to be passively heated by sunlight.