The 4-3, bipartisan opinion helps settle a long-running feud between HOAs and would-be solar owners over the exact meaning of a 2007 solar access law, giving planned communities less power to deny rooftop solar than many have been asserting. 

“This decision will reduce a significant barrier to the residential solar market in North Carolina,” said Peter Ledford, general counsel of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, in a news release. 

Though its rules don’t mention solar, the Belmont Community Association had argued an exception in the law gave its architectural committee broad authority to prevent panels visible from the street. 

On the other side, Tom Farwig — joined by rooftop solar companies, clean energy advocates, and the state’s attorney general — had contended that the law required any HOA ban on street-facing panels like his to be explicit. 

The Court of Appeals had agreed with Belmont, citing the law’s legislative history and its title to conclude the legislature wanted to give homeowners associations wide power to regulate solar. 

But Justice Robin Hudson, a Democrat, said the lower court needn’t have looked beyond the text of the statute to determine that it intended for HOAs to make any restrictions on solar clear. 

“The Court of Appeals contravenes our rules of statutory interpretation by applying canons of construction where the plain meaning of the statute is clear,” she wrote in a majority opinion, joined by two other Democrats, Justices Sam Ervin and Anita Earls, and Republican Justice Tamara Barringer.

Another exception in the law allows HOAs to move solar panels so long as the new location doesn’t prevent their “reasonable use.” But that doesn’t apply to Belmont, either, Hudson ruled, since panels on the back, north-facing side of Farwig’s home would lose about half their productivity. 

“We hold that the restriction at issue here does have the effect of prohibiting the installation of solar panels and the reasonable use of solar panels and, accordingly, the exception contained in subsection (c) of the statute does not apply,” Hudson wrote.

A quarter of all North Carolinians and about 40% of homeowners live in over 14,000 HOA communities statewide. The court’s decision could provide new clarity in potentially thousands of these post-2007 developments. To prevent street-facing solar panels, homeowners associations now must do so explicitly in their covenants. 

Bryce Bruncati, director of residential sales for 8MSolar, estimates his company alone has 30 to 40 would-be customers each year who are denied approval even though their HOA rules don’t reference solar. For them, the ruling is a great step, he said. 

“There are now dozens of our clients who are excited to get the ball rolling on their solar projects,” he said. “It opens the door to a good chunk of people.”

Still, installers and advocates say the 2007 law could be further improved by eliminating the ability to limit street-facing solar altogether and specifying that HOAs can’t dictate any placement that would cause more than a 10% drop in productivity. House Bill 842, which passed the House last year and is eligible in the Senate, would do just that. 

But, says the sustainable energy association’s Ledford, the bill would only apply to the hundreds of new HOAs formed each year, not those established since 2007. For the latter category, the court’s ruling is crucial.

“The North Carolina Supreme Court has now affirmed the right to go solar under the law,” said Lauren Bowen, senior attorney and leader of Southern Environmental Law Center’s Solar Initiative. “Homeowners can now be confident their decisions to go solar will not be denied arbitrarily.”