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Let the sun shine in REAL ESTATE Access-to-sun laws don't really exist but governments are still encouraging private solar power arrays. BY PAUL BRENT businesses to install expensive rooftop solar power arrays to feed power into the electricity grid. And by offering to pay many multiples of the going rate for electricity to get that clean, green solar energy, the province has created what's been described as a modern-day gold rush. There's just one problem. There is no established law in Canada giv- ing individuals or companies the right to access the sun. They can build them, and in Ontario they are being incentiv- ized handsomely to mount photovoltaic arrays on rooftops, but in cities like To- ronto, proud PV owners have little legal recourse should a condo tower or mon- ster home suddenly shroud their solar money-makers. For Robert Wakulat, a Toronto law- T yer specializing in climate change and renewable energy law issues, the lack of a solar-access law "is just another nail in the coffin with all the bad publicity the [provincial] government is receiv- ing. If homeowners or businesses make the huge investments in solar and then discover, 'Oh, I don't even have the right to light that I just spent all this money on,' it will just add to the backlash." While Wakulat says it would be logi- cal for right-to-solar issues to be han- dled at the local level by municipalities, Ontario's Green Energy Act has, in fact, taken away much of the planning authority from local governments. "It's a little bit of an irony," he says. "Really it is up to the provincial government to step up to create some kind of frame- work or certainty." To date, the lack of solar-access legislation has not slowed the gold rush. "It hasn't stopped any- one. People I have talked to, whether it is commercial or residential, have not considered this a barrier to what they have wanted to do." Currently, there are no right-to-so- lar laws on the books in Canada, while they exist in some places in the U.S. The one recourse currently open to a PV owner is the Ontario Municipal Board. Wakulat cites the issue of a developer's plan to build a 14-storey condominium building in Toronto's downtown King and Spadina area that would loom over the $12,000 solar PV array of indus- trial designer Richard Brault. Brault and others joined in opposition to the www.CANADIAN Lawyermag.com JAN UARY 2011 21 hrough its controversial Green Energy Act, the Ontario government is spending millions to en- courage homeowners and JOEl kIMMEl