Berkeley going solar - city pays up front, recoups over 20 years

Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
SFGate, Friday, October 26, 2007 (Click here for article)

Regardless of what you think about Berkeley and/or global warming, I think everyone has to agree that this is a brilliant move by Berkeley in so many ways.

In essence, Berkeley will pay for homeowners to install solar panels (from selected vendors...they better be the best and be giving bulk rate prices!) and then put a 20-year assessment on the home. The assessment would be less than or equal to the utility savings. The city could charge less than market rate interest by securing low-interest bonds and loans.

This plan will:
- reduce imports of middle eastern oil.
- reduce pollution.
- stop our money from going to dictators in Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.
- create good paying jobs.
- increase the pace of development in solar technology.
- increase home values and more!

The only thing I would add is that this is something that with a little more coordination the results could be even more tremendous...but it is a start.

CAR, NAR and all Realtors should get behind this and see if they can get their municipalities, localities, etc (if appropriate for your areas) to do the same. Imagine if the entire state of California did this. Or the entire nation? How much money could we save, pollution we could reduce and jobs and technology we could create!!

If I was a presidential candidate (on either side of the aisle) I would make Berkeley my next stop and make their plan on this issue a part of my campaign.

We need another JFK "Man to the moon" speech at Rice University in 1962 and Berkeley is showing the way.

Newsletter September 26, 2007

Quotes from SF Business Times Article

A few quotes that I find interesting from the article in this weeks SF Business Times by J.K. Dineen

"The only question is affordability," he (Nat Bosa) said. "For a city like San Francisco and an area like the Bay Area, when you look at how much is under construction, it's not very much. Vancouver would blow it away. More stuff sells in Vancouver in two weekends than here in three months and Vancouver is a hell of a lot smaller city than San Francisco."

"Someday you're going to be driving across that canal and saying, 'why the hell didn't I buy back then?'" said Bosa. "The commercial is going to hum. It's going to be an ideal small city within a city where you can live, work, go to school, play in the park, all within a five minute walk. That is the ideal city of the future. Forget about tracts of houses and commutes."

But even Bosa is hedging his bets -- if only a bit.

"The worst case scenario is we get shut out and piles won't be driven on (Radiance's second phase) for a while," he said. "Why would you keep on climbing Mount Everest if the storm is coming in and it looks terrible? You might take your tent and park yourself on the side for a couple of days."

SFCondoMap.com