The Wall Street Journal
The Right to Dry: A Green Movement Is Roiling America
Clothesline Has Neighbors Bent Out of Shape in Bend; An Illegal Solar Device?
By ANNE MARIE CHAKER
September 18, 2007
BEND, Ore. -- It was a sunny, 70-degree day here in Awbrey Butte, an exclusive neighborhood of big, modern houses surrounded by native pines. To Susan Taylor, it was a perfect time to hang her laundry out to dry. The 55-year-old mother and part-time nurse strung a clothesline to a tree in her backyard, pinned up some freshly washed flannel sheets -- and, with that, became a renegade. The regulations of the subdivision in which Ms. Taylor lives effectively prohibit outdoor clotheslines. In a move that has torn apart this otherwise tranquil community, the development's managers have threatened legal action. To the developer and many residents, clotheslines evoke the urban blight they sought to avoid by settling in the Oregon mountains. "This bombards the senses," interior designer Joan Grundeman says of her neighbor's clothesline. "It can't possibly increase property values and make people think this is a nice neighborhood."
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Nationwide, about 60 million people now live in about 300,000 "association governed" communities, most of which restrict outdoor laundry hanging, says Frank Rathbun, spokesman for the Community Associations Institute, an Alexandria, Va., group that lobbies on behalf of homeowners associations. But the rules are costly to the environment -- and to consumers -- clothesline advocates argue. Clothes dryers account for 6% of total electricity consumed by U.S. households, third behind refrigerators and lighting, according to the Residential Energy Consumption Survey by the federal Energy Information Administration. It costs the typical household $80 a year to run a standard electric dryer, according to a calculation by E Source Cos., in Boulder, Colo., which advises businesses on reducing energy consumption.
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Ten states, including Nevada and Wisconsin, limit homeowners associations' ability to restrict the installation of solar-energy systems, or assign that power to local authorities, says Erik J.A. Swenson, a Washington, D.C.-based partner at law firm King & Spalding LLP, who has written about the policies. He says it's unclear in most of these states whether clotheslines qualify as "solar" devices. Only the laws in Florida and Utah expressly include clotheslines.
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The Awbrey Butte Architectural Review Committee "appreciates your desire to make a difference for the cause of global warming," responded Brooks Resources Owner-Relations Manager Carol Haworth. But she pointed out that homeowners agree to the rules before they buy their homes, "and therefore the ARC is required to uphold those guidelines as they now exist." The letter more sternly asked "that you discontinue this practice by July 9, 2007, to avoid legal action which will be taken after that date."
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Facing the threat of legal action, Ms. Taylor has in recent days resorted to hanging the laundry in her garage, with the door open slightly. But she says that denies her laundry the direct benefits of the sun and the fresh mountain air. She is thinking of moving to a less-restrictive neighborhood.
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