Gerald Sharp, PRA Treasurer, and equally importantly, a source of helpful information about solar energy, especially solar panels, has summarized the results of his efforts this year in this PRA NEWS story. Well done, Gerald, and thank you!!
In 2023, I took advantage of the Solar Switch program for Montgomery County in which companies installing solar panels submit bids to install panels, and the county contracts with the lowest bidder that meets their requirements to get a group rate for solar installations. Lumina Solar had the county contract that year and although they did not win the contract in 2024, the Lumina Solar representative I had worked with said that Lumina would give the PRA a $1000 referral fee for anyone we referred to them who signed a contract in January 2025, later reduced to $500 beginning in February.
I referred 25 residents to Lumina Solar this year; I have stopped referring people now since time is too short for additional installations to be completed and billed before the federal tax credit ends Dec. 31st.
Of the 25 people I referred, 8 residents had solar systems installed with 3 more to be installed this year. Joan McDermott posted my emails and updates on the KECA listserv, and 6 of those 25 residents I referred live in Kensington Estates, 3 of whom ended up signing with Lumina Solar. [Ed note. One of those residents was kind enough to send Gerald a thank you note.]
So far, I have paid out $4100 in refunds of the Lumina Solar referral fees paid to the PRA. For each of those 8 rebates, I paid $100 to either the PRA or KECA, with the remainder being paid to the Parkwood and Kensington Estates residents. So $500 was added to the PRA treasury and $300 to KECA’s. The last three installations to be done are all in Parkwood, so another $300 will go into the PRA treasury.
My idea of the solar program wasn’t to support Lumina Solar (although it did end up increasing their business), since there are also other good companies installing solar systems in our neighborhood. Rather, the objective was to make information available about the ins and outs of doing the installations with price comparisons, so people could make better decisions about installing solar systems, as well as giving people back most of that referral fee that Lumina Solar paid us. Since the tax credit is only available this year with the program being stopped, it turned out this was an opportune time to do it.
A bit of background about the Montgomery Art Association’s Annual Show [by Gerald Sharp]
Over the Labor Day weekend, Kensington again hosted this year’s Paint the Town art show and sale, sponsored by the Montgomery Art Association. In the mid-1980’s “Art in the Park” was first started, displaying paintings in the gardens. In 1987 the show was renamed “Paint the Town” with cash prizes, and it became part of Kensington’s Labor Day festivities. In 1995, some 30 years ago, the show was expanded to its present three-day format from Saturday through Labor Day on Monday, and the show was moved indoors to the Kensington Armory.
This year, works of art in several categories (Abstract, Kensington, Portrait, Sculpture, Still Life, Landscape, and Photography) were exhibited and sold over the three-day holiday. Plein Air paintings, usually landscapes, that must be fully painted outdoors without photographs to take into account outdoor lighting, were completed and were also presented (often still wet) and sold during the show
Dozens of works by many artists are shown. The largest prize each year is the Bertha Clum award for the best in the Kensington Category, paintings that are limited to Kensington landscapes. The winning painting of the Clum award is shown below, along with two honorable mentions. A visit to the show is always a worthwhile and enriching experience. Put it on your calendar for next year so you can see all the works exhibited.
Clum Award winners [photos by Jeff Griffith with apologies to the artists]
The card reads:
Shell 185, Oil, Robert LeMar
“This piece is of the ever-present Shell station at Knowles and Connecticut
Ave at night. It’s a downtown Kensington landmark that I always notice.”
Kensington in Collage, Honorable Mention, Mixed Media
by Teresa Sites
“A stroll down Howard Avenue during Paint the Town is not to be missed.”
Every year the Town of Kensington sponsors its annual Labor Day Parade. Great fun and a way to say goodbye to the hot summer and hello to the cooler fall. In case you missed it, here are a few pictures.
Of course you have to start with the color guard.
…and speaking of color…
And some old time…cars.
A band is an absolute must – can you hear it?
And what’s a parade without your local rep…
…and the scouts!!
But in case you did miss it, there is always next year.
[Gerald Sharp, PRA Treassurer, has published this update to his previous article on the Solar Switch program for Montgomery County].
In 2023 I took advantage of the Solar Switch program for Montgomery County in which companies installing solar panels submit bids to install panels, and the program contracts with the lowest bidder that meets their requirements to get a group rate for solar installations. I wrote up my experience with the program and the company, Lumina Solar in Baltimore, that won the contract that year and installed my panels in December 2023. My article is available on the PRA website and now also on the Solar Switch website.
At the end of 2024, Charlie Keyser, the Lumina Solar representative I had worked with, said that Lumina Solar could come close to meeting the Solar Switch price for 2024 (when they were not the low bidder and official chosen contractor), and Lumina Solar could give the PRA a $1000 referral fee for anyone we referred to them in January 2025. I asked the PRA Executive Committee (EC) if it would be okay to keep just $100 of the referral fees and pay the balance to the residents installing solar panels, and the EC agreed. Later when I started referring residents in Kensington Estates to the program, we decided to give $100 to their neighborhood organization and the balance to their residents who contracted with Lumina Solar. Residents I referred in January 2025 were slated to receive $900; residents I referred before or after January 2025 were slated to receive $400 with the extra $100 going to either the PRA or the Kensington Estates Civic Association (KECA).
So far, I have referred 15 residents of Parkwood and Kensington Estates to Lumina Solar, and 8 of those referrals were in January 2025, qualifying them for the $900 rebate from the PRA. Of those 15 referrals, 6 residents have signed contracts with Lumina Solar (3 qualifying for $900 rebates and 3 qualifying for $400 rebates from the referral fees being paid to the PRA). Two of the residents installing panels live in Kensington Estates, so the PRA will pay one of them $400 and the other one $900 with $200 going to KECA.
Some residents who decided not to install solar panels had houses with too much shade from their trees to make the panels effective, but the most common reason residents had to not go forward was fear that the current 30% federal tax credit would be cancelled by the White House, and thus they would not get that substantial tax credit when they filed their taxes for 2025. This is unlikely to happen, but some people don’t trust the administration not to cancel it.
According to the IRS, the 30% tax credit is available until 2032. The credit is nonrefundable, so the credit amount you receive can’t exceed the amount you owe in tax, but you can carry forward any excess unused credit and apply it to reduce the tax you owe in future years. Congress would have to agree to cancel it, and while this might happen in the future, it would be difficult to make any cancellation retroactive. Thus, solar panels installed this year should qualify for the 30% tax credit when people file their 2025 federal taxes next year.
Maryland previously offered a $1000 rebate to residents installing solar panels, but that program expired last November. The state currently has a program to cover up to $7500 of the installation costs for middle income residents with “middle income” being defined as maximum gross yearly income of $128,430 for 1-person households, $147,715 for 2-, $165,090 for 3-, and $183,373 for 4-person households. Information about this Maryland program is available at this link.
If you own an electric car or plan to buy one, Maryland also offers a rebate program for people who install Level 2 (dryer plug) outlets to charge their car. The program, which currently is out of funds, will pay 50% of outlet installation costs up to $700. Information about the program is here. I had Lumina Solar install a Level 2 outlet when they installed my panels and received a check for $600 from the state.
One Parkwood resident, Marc Goldstein, who decided to contract with Lumina Solar to install his panels, also received estimates from 5 other solar power installation companies. Comparison of the bids he received gives us an opportunity to compare the various installation companies operating here. Table 1 below shows the prices charged by Lumina Solar and the other five companies he contacted, along with other characteristics of the various bids.
Installation costs varied a lot on solar panel systems being installed locally. Integrate Sun had the lowest total cost of $15,674 ($10,971 after the 30% federal tax credit), but their system was the only one using a single inverter for all the panels. (Solar SME had the lowest final cost after their $5,800 rebate reduced it to $9,051.) The other companies used more expensive systems with a microinverter installed for each panel separately. Inverters convert the DC power generated by the sun into AC power. Using microinverters for each panel allows them to operate independently, minimizing the impact of shading and panel failures on overall system output. Nova Solar offered a discount of $6,450 for their installation, comparable to Solar SME’s $5,800 discount.
Because I referred Marc to Lumina in January 2025, he qualified for the $900 PRA rebate from our referral fee. Overall, there was a wider difference in the final cost estimates of each company than I would have expected. Final cost estimates ranged from a low of $9,051 for Solar SME to the highest bid about twice as high for Palmetto at $19,349. Payback periods also differed with the different companies, ranging from 4.4 years for Solar SME to 9.1 years for Palmetto. However, this is an estimated number, because no one knows how much power companies will charge for electricity in the future, and the companies did not use the same rate increase estimates.
You will notice in Table 1 that the cost of installing a battery adds about $10,000 to the cost of the solar panel installations. Marc and I decided not to install batteries when we contracted with Lumina Solar. Maryland is a net metering state, meaning the state requires that when customers put excess power generated by their panels into the grid, they are credited by PEPCO and other power companies at the same price per kilowatt-hour (kWh) that they are charged. This is not true in all states, because in some states the power companies are allowed to pay a lower rate for power put into the grid. With net metering, the grid basically functions as a battery allowing the home owner to put excess power into the grid during the sunshine hours and pull it back out at night. Thus, the $10,000 extra cost is harder to justify here.
The downside is that during a power outage, PEPCO will turn off solar panel installations that lack batteries to avoid electrocuting their linemen. If the home owner has a battery, PEPCO does not do this, thereby allowing solar panels to provide back-up power. I decided that power outages here are too infrequent to justify the extra $10,000 cost. Lumina Solar also offered Marc “critter guards”, basically a fence around the panels to keep animals from getting under them. This was an additional $2000 charge, that I deducted from his cost estimate.
Table 2 shows information about the number of panels and per panel costs, as well as information about the warranties offered by the 6 companies. The companies surprised me in that the number of panels they planned to install differed so much, ranging from 14 to 25 panels. I mean, after all, they were doing solar panel installations on the same house. Solar SME with the lowest final cost of $9,051 planned to install 18 panels and discounted their price by $5,800. Palmetto with the highest bid planned to install the most panels of any company at 25 and did not discount their price. Marc said that Lumina Solar planned to install 21 panels, but they found during the installation that only 20 would fit on his roof, and his cost was decreased. Thus, Palmetto’s plan to install 25 panels was probably not feasible.
I was also surprised by the wide variation in the cost of each panel, which ranged from $503 for Solar SME with their large rebate to $1,130 for Cosmo Solaris. Four of the companies used Rec panels, which are rated higher than the Sun panels offered by the other two companies. Sun panels produce less watts per panel than Rec panels: 405 watts vs. 420-460 watts for Rec panels. That difference and the difference in the numbers of panels being installed helps to explain the variation between companies in the estimated annual electricity production. Cost per panel ranged from $503 to $1,130 for Rec panels and from $609 to $774 for Sun panels.
In terms of warranties, the six companies offered similar plans. Warranties on installations were 25 years for Integrate Sun, Nova Solar, and Palmetto and 30 years for Cosmo Solaris and Solar SME. Warranties on inverters were 25 years for all the companies except Integrate Sun at 10 years, the company that also was the low bidder for final costs.
In summary, the PRA’s program to facilitate adding solar power systems in Parkwood and Kensington Estates by returning most of Lumina Solar’s referral fee to residents here was moderately successful with a third of the people I referred to them opting to install panels. If we had an administration that was more supportive of renewable energy, the PRA program might have been more successful with more people trusting that they would actually receive the current 30% federal tax credit for solar panel installations.
In terms of the costs of solar power installations by companies operating here, there was a surprising difference in the estimates Marc received—both in price, number of panels to be installed, and cost per panel even though the panels being installed were very similar. If you are thinking of installing solar panels, it is probably a smart idea to compare estimates from several companies before choosing a company to contract with, and be sure to ask them for any possible discounts. Also consider taking advantage of the county’s Solar Switch program when it is offered again. The PRA will continue to return most of the referral fees we get for referring people to Lumina Solar, which currently has $400 going to residents and $100 going to the PRA or KECA. If you are interested in getting a free estimate, just let me know.
The Montgomery County Civic Federation [MCCF] will honor Parkwood’s Joe Harkins at its 100th Year Anniversary Celebration on June 8, 2025. Joe will receive the Federation’s Star Cup, awarded to the Federation delegate or committee performing the most outstanding public service on behalf of Montgomery County. The Federation itself will be celebrating its 100 years of community involvement and civic engagement on behalf of Montgomery County residents at the meeting.
Joe is the chair of the PRA Civic Liaison Committee and one of the association’s official delegates to the MCCF. Recognizing his legal experience and his diplomatic skills, the Federation asked Joe to chair its bylaws committee, which was tasked with updating its existing bylaws, last revised in 2013. Joe and his committee did important and commendable work and the bylaws were overwhelmingly approved by the MCCF delegates at their April 2025 meeting.
Well done to Joe and congratulations on his award!
On Tuesday, April 8, 2025, the Montgomery County Council approved legislation and two zoning measures to incentivize the conversion of highly vacant office buildings into housing.
Zoning Text Amendment (ZTA) 25-03 and Subdivision Regulation Amendment (SRA) 25-01 create an expedited approval process, and Bill 2-25 establishes a 20-year Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) for qualifying office to housing conversions that provide at least 17.5 percent affordable housing. The provisions of the PILOT sunset in 10 years.
According to the Council’s press release, Montgomery County, like many jurisdictions, has an excess of commercial office space with vacancies. At the end of 2024, the countywide office vacancy rate rose to 18.5 percent, double the previous year, with vacancies concentrated in older, functionally obsolete office buildings, which negatively impacts revenues and introduces blight into communities. The County press release is here.
The remaining component of the More Housing N.O.W component is ZTA 25-02, which will be taken up in June after the Council completes the FY2025-26 budget. This amendment allows duplexes, triplexes, townhouses, and apartment buildings in the R-40, R-60, R-90, and R-200 zones if along the following road types: Boulevard, Downtown Boulevard, Downtown Street, Town Center Boulevard, or Controlled Major Highway. For affordability, 15% of the units, with a minimum of 1 workforce housing unit if an application has at least 3 units, must meet the requirements for workforce housing, which is defined as at or below 120% average median income (AMI) in the County Code. For more details see this PRA News article.
On Monday/early Tuesday morning, April 7/8, Governor Moore’s Housing for Jobs Act, substantially rewritten in a House of Delegates committee, expired along with the General Assembly’s regular 2025 session.
Although the House and Senate appeared to agree on the need for studies and reports on the housing market, as well as targets to increase housing in certain regions of the state, they stalled on language concerning “vesting rights” for developers. As proposed, such rights would have guaranteed housing developers the ability to proceed under zoning and permitting rules in place at the time of application and for five years thereafter. The bill did not move out of the Senate Education, Energy, and Environment Committee before the end of session.
Similar legislation is likely to be introduced next year. It is doubtful, however, that counties and municipalities will cede zoning and permitting authority to the state, as the first draft of HB 503/SB 430 appeared to contemplate. Thus, for Parkwood and surrounding neighborhoods, major legislative action on housing returns to the Montgomery County Council this year. Nevertheless, “politics is less local than it used to be.” Andrew Gelman, “All Politics is Local? The Debate and the Graphs,” NYT, 03/21/15
At the end of the Planning, Housing, and Parks [PHP] Committee work session on March 31, 2025, CM Friedson announced that because the Council was about to enter the budget season, it would not take up ZTA 2025-02 again until June.
This ZTA that will allow duplexes, triplexes, townhouses, and apartment buildings in the R-40, R-60, R-90, and R-200 zones if along the following road types: Boulevard, Downtown Boulevard, Downtown Street, Town Center Boulevard, or Controlled Major Highway. For affordability, 15% of the units, with a minimum of 1 workforce housing unit if an application has at least 3 units, must meet the requirements for workforce housing, which is defined as at or below 120% average median income (AMI) in the County Code.
To address the many issues raised by county residents at various hearings and listening session and by the Council and Planning Department staffs, the report accompanying the work session divided the issues into the following sections: (1) General (2) Corridors (3) Consolidation (4) Affordability (5) Development Standards (6) State and Federal Law (7) Impacts and (8) Technical and Other Amendments.
Of particular interest to many residents will be the staff responses to the 7 questions discussed in section (1) General, beginning on page 4 or the report. These include:
How much new housing supply is needed and based on what data?
How many additional units do these proposals assume will be needed in the next 10 years to meet demand? How many housing units at what approximate price level does the Council anticipate these policies will generate?
What is the development pipeline and why can it not achieve the County’s supply needs?
What is the zoning text amendment (ZTA) process?
Will notices be sent to effected property owners
How will this ZTA be enforced?
What is the difference between a master plan and a ZTA, and why are these changes being made through a ZTA?
This is an update on housing from Joe Harkins, Co-Chair of the PRA Housing Committee.
Governor Moore’s Housing for Jobs Act, HB 503, was recently overhauled and approved in the Maryland House of Delegates Committee on Environment and Transportation. PRA News previously reported on the potential for the bill, as originally drafted, to preempt county and local zoning and permitting requirements. At the urging of the Maryland Association of Counties, those provisions have now been removed.
Instead, the committee draft now creates a housing commission to study the perceived housing crisis in the state and to make recommendations to increase affordable housing. The bill also provides for the Housing Secretary to set a 10-year target for housing production, including sub-targets by region. In addition, developers would be provided “vesting rights” such that, for five years after approval, projects must be governed by zoning and permitting requirements in effect at the time of application. An updated version of the Senate bill, SB 430, would have to be conformed to the House bill before final passage.
Time may run out on any version of this legislation (by the April 7 end of session), but it would be unusual for a Governor’s Bill not to pass in some form, especially given the Democratic majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly.
The PRA Housing Committee, and its neighboring partner associations*, want to alert residents to legislation now pending before the Maryland General Assembly. The Housing for Jobs bills, HB 503 and SB 430, seek to accelerate county and municipality approvals of building permits in order to increase new housing.
The bills do so by identifying counties with a housing “deficit,” such that those counties would be required to expedite approvals of building permits unless a denial would fit six narrow exceptions. Even then, an exception can be overridden by “the need for more housing.” Montgomery County would be in the building deficit category until it achieves 33,000 new approvals, without regard to its current “pipeline” of some 35,000 housing permit approvals yet to be built. Under this formula, Montgomery County could remain in deficit indefinitely.
Under the proposed state legislation, in order for a county or local authority to deny new or substantially new housing permits, the authority would have to show, by clear and convincing evidence, that the housing would: adversely impact health or safety of occupants; fail to comply with other state or federal law; lack adequate water or wastewater facilities; be located on inappropriate land, such as industrial or agricultural space; cause local school enrollment to exceed 100% of capacity; not comply with objective written development standards in existence at the time of application.
Proponents of the legislation claim that this last exception preserves county and local zoning and permitting requirements. Opponents point out that the override for “the need for more housing” could preempt this and the other exceptions. In any event, traditional neighborhood considerations, such as traffic, parking and compatibility, do not figure into any of the provisions of the bill as currently proposed.
The General Assembly is in session until April 7, 2025. Insiders in Annapolis expect substantial amendments to be advanced to these bills. But, due to the widespread perception of a housing crisis in the state, some form of the legislation is likely to be enacted by the General Assembly this year. We will update residents as the “sausage-making” progresses in the state capital.
*Kensington Estates Civic Association and Byeforde-Rock Creek Highlands Citizens Association.
Parkwood Residents Association 