Published LAFAYETTE by the City of Lafayette Summer 2015 VVISTASISTAS Vol. 25, No.3 LET THE SUN SHINE IN: Going Solar in Lafayette ake a drive around Lafayette and you’ll see more and more homes with solar panels up on the roof. You might Thave even considered them for yourself but you weren’t sure if solar panels work for you. Fortunately, three new tools can help answer that question. Project Sunroof The first is an impressive new mapping application launched by Google in mid-August called Project Sunroof. Tapping its trove of satellite imagery and the latest in artificial intelligence, the company’s new online service instantly estimates how much you’ll save by installing a roof full of solar panels. After creating a 3-D model of your roof, the application cal- culates how much sun will hit those solar panels during the year and how much money the panels will save you over the Last December, when the Lafayette City Council autho- next two decades. The service is now available for homes in the rized CaliforniaFIRST to deliver the product to local residents, San Francisco Bay Area, including Lafayette. Lafayette became one of the first cities in Contra Costa County In analyzing satellite images of your home, Google uses to offer PACE financing to its residents. Subsequently, the City “deep learning” networks to separate your roof from the sur- has added four more PACE Programs, including California rounding trees and shadows. Project Sunroof also simulates the HERO, California Statewide Community Development shadows that typically cover your home on any given day and Authority Open PACE Platform, Figtree Financing, and Ygrene it tracks local weather patterns. You can further hone that com- Energy Fund. For more information, check out www.love pany’s calculations by providing how much you lafayette.org/pace. typically spend on electricity. East Bay Sunshares So: fire up your computer, run the applica- You can make your tion for your address, and see just how much solar loan payment via OK, now you’ve determined, using you might save over the long run by going solar. Project Sunroof, that solar panels make sense your property tax bill for you and you’ve also arranged for PACE PACE financing. Who should install your solar “But, wait,” you say! It’s precisely “the long system? run” that inhibits my interest in solar. “Not only is the upfront Here’s an option: the City of Lafayette has recently teamed amount of $20,000 or $30,000 needed to install the system a up with the nonprofitVote Solar Initiative to launch a new solar challenge, but I’m not sure I’ll live in this house long enough to bulk buy program for homeowners. This program pools the reap the benefit.” power of multiple buyers to get the most competitive pricing You fear that you’ll be making loan payments long after you from solar companies. have moved. It’s called East Bay SunShares and, if you’re interest- Cisco DeVries came up with a solution for that. He was ed, act now because it’s available only until November 6th. working for the City of Berkeley when, after hearing time and Homeowners will receive up to 15% off the current market again from people who feared moving and being stuck with solar payments, he came up with what Scientific American price of solar through this program. This is in addition to the would later call one of the “world-changing” ideas of the year: 30% Federal Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credit that is attaching the loan payment to the property tax bill. still available. Note that this tax credit is slated to sunset on That’s right: The PACE, or Property Assessed Clean Energy, December 31, 2016. program allows qualifying home and commercial property For more information, search the internet for “east bay sun owners to finance solar installations and other energy shares” or otherwise check out lovelafayette.org under “Hot efficiency and water conservation upgrades by borrowing the Topics.” up-front costs and then repaying the loan as a line item on The combination of advanced solar mapping, federal subsi- their property tax bills. By using PACE financing to pay for dies, transferable financing, and cheaper installations has led the costs of solar, homeowners get clean power for no cash up more than a quarter million Californians to install solar panels front, and pay it off over a 10-, 15-, or 20-year period. If the on their rooftops. Will you be next? home is sold, the responsibility for the payment transfers to the new property owner. THE JENNIFER RUSSELL BUILDING She did it with a collaborative spirit, great integrity and a generous sense of humor arlier this summer, after having selected the contrac- tor to build the new $2.5M recreation pavilion at Ethe Community Center, the City Council decided to name the building for Lafayette’s longtime Parks Trails and Recreation Director Jennifer Russell. Hired in 1979 – just ten years after the City incorpo- rated – Jennifer was Lafayette’s first permanent recreation employee, and she has man- aged our parks and recreation programs ever since. With more than thirty five years of service under her belt, she’s got more tenure than any other Working alongside commissioners, council- Lafayette employee. members, mentors, volunteers, and co-work- Among scores of accomplish- ers, Jennifer helped create the parks, trails, and rec- ments, Jennifer Russell oversaw the reation department that Lafayette enjoys today, acquisition and conversion of the and she did it — and continues to do it — in a old Burton School into the Lafayette collaborative spirit, with great integrity, and with a Community Center; facilitated the generous sense of humor. purchase and development of the Lafayette Community Park and We hope you’ll join us – and Jennifer – Buckeye Fields; helped establish Lafayette’s extensive trails pro- on October 1st at 5:30 pm as Lafayette Jennifer Russell circa 1980 gram; organized the purchase and celebrates the grand opening of the improvement of Leigh Creekside Park; and created and delivered Jennifer Russell Building at the Lafayette recreation programs appreciated by tens of thousands of happy Community Center. 500 St. Mary’s Road. participants over many decades. CLEAN YOUR CREEKS! El Niño on the Way y now you’ve probably heard the predictions regarding Lafayette when a massive tropical storm arrived. On New Year’s this year’s El Niño. Indeed, according to an August fore- Day, 1998, clouds dropped more than ten inches of rain in the Bcast by the Climate Prediction Center, the El Niño brew- City in less than four hours. ing this year in the equatorial Pacific is on course to become During that storm, Lafayette recorded fifty-six separate one of the strongest — if flooding incidents and the soil became so saturated that a house not the strongest — such up on Quail Ridge Road slid down its hill and was completely system on record. destroyed. When it was all said and done, Lafayette spent more What that means than $1M on storm cleanup and was a recipient of FEMA emer- for drought-stricken gency assistance. California is not entire- Experience tells us that the threat is real, and the biggest ly clear, but the odds danger for local residents during El Niño storms is presented by increasingly favor a wet clogged creeks. When local waterways back up, the water will winter for the state. And it flow wherever it can go — which is often over roads, yards, and could be very wet. into your house. During the last large El The best way to prevent this is to keep Lafayette’s creeks Niño year, in 1997-98, the clean and clear of debris. This, of course, is a team effort! One San Francisco Bay Area errant picnic table or upstream log jam can create havoc for received 47.2 inches of others living downstream. rain. That’s more than the If you live on a creek, please take some time this autumn to last four years combined. pull out any furniture, trash, or debris that might collect and December 1997 was inhibit the flow. already one of the wet- By working together we can keep the water flowing. .and test months on record in the City safe. HOMES AT DEER HILL BETTER OUTLooK FOR Years of Debate Come to a Close FIRE STATION 16 e’ve written several No area presents a greater times about the con- risk for catastrophic fire Wtroversial develop- APPROVED ment planned for the large in Contra Costa County 22-acre parcel off Deer Hill Road near Acalanes High School. In he northwestern area of Lafayette pres- August, after more than four ents a greater risk for catastrophic fire years in front of Lafayette’s Tthan any other region in Contra Costa review boards, the City Council County, yet it has been without a continuous- greenlighted a 44-home housing ly operated fire station for the last four years. development that replaces the That may soon change. earlier plan for 315 moderate-income apartments. Buoyed by stronger finances, the Contra This, despite last-minute protests from local residents concerned that the Costa County Fire District is considering development – though scaled down – will generate too much traffic, and reopening a closed fire station in Lafayette housing advocates insisting that the earlier all-affordable plan should be and scrapping a partnership with the Moraga- adopted. Orinda Fire District that would have built a The decision caps years of vitriolic debate over what should go on that new facility on the Lafayette-Orinda border.