Solar energy vs. shade - Solar, Wind and Land: Conflicts in Renewable Energy Development - page 116

website at http://lawcommission.justice.gov.uk/consultations/rights-to-light.htm
(last visited June 25, 2013).
10 See John William Gergacz, Legal Aspects of Solar Energy: Statutory Approaches
for Access to Sunlight , 10 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 1, 6 (Fall 1982) (citing
Gergacz, Solar Energy Law: Easements of Access to Sunlight , 10 N.M. L. Rev.
121, 141-44 (1980)) (identifying state courts in at least six U.S. states that had
recognized the doctrine of ancient lights prior to 1939).
11 See McKee, supra note 6 at 441 (noting that “between 1835 and 1939 every
state rejected” the doctrine of ancient lights “as unsuited to a developing
country because it inhibited economically sound land use practices”). See also
Fontainebleau Hotel Corp. v. Forty-Five Twenty-Five, Inc., 114 So.2d 357
(1959) (holding that the “English doctrine of 'ancient lights' has been unani-
mously repudiated in this country”).
12 For a more detailed description of the history of prescriptive sunlight access
easement laws in Australia and New Zealand, see generally Law Commission
Consultation Paper No. 210: Rights to Light at 31-33 (2013), available at http://
lawcommission.justice.gov.uk/consultations/rights-to-light.htm (last visited June
25, 2013).
13 See Lynch v. Hill , 6 A.2d 614, 618 (1939) (cited in McKee, supra note 6 at 441)
(declaring that the doctrine of ancient lights was “not suitable to the conditions
of a new growing and populous country, which contains many large cities and
towns, where buildings are often necessarily erected on small lots”).
14 See Janice L. Dornbush, Japanese Real Estate : Does the Government Help or
Hinder Development? , 5 Cornell Real Estate Rev. 1, 4 (2007).
15 See Bruce Yandle, Grasping for the Heavens: 3-D Property Rights and the
Global Commons , 10 Duke Envtl. L. & Pol'y F. 13 (1999) (noting that “Japan
underwent a construction boom in the 1960s” during which time many new
high-rise buildings began to shade residential homes, causing an “upsurge in
disputes concerning access to sunlight”).
16 See F. G. Takagi, Legal Protection of Solar Rights , 10 Conn. L. Rev. 121,
136 (1977-78) (citing Miyazaki, Nissho Kogaini Kansu Rukari Shobun Jiken
(Provisional disposition cases involving sunshine interference), 327 Hanrei
Taimuzu 39 (1974)).
17 See Mohamed Boubekri, Solar Access Legislation: A Historical Perspective of
New York City and Tokyo , Planning & Environmental Law, Vol. 57, No. 5,
p. 3 (May 2005) (citing Mimpo, Law No. 89 of 1896 and Law No. 9 of 1998).
18 See id.
19 For a timeline describing in greater detail the history of solar energy technol-
ogies, including Edmund Becquerel's discovery of the photovoltaic effect in the
1800s and Bell Telephone Laboratories' development of the first silicon solar cell
in 1954, see generally The History of Solar , U.S. Department of Energy: Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy, available at http://www1.eere.energy.gov/
solar/pdfs/solar_timeline.pdf (last visited June 26, 2013).
20 See Edna Sussman, Reshaping Municipal and County Laws to Foster Green
Building, Energy Efficiency, and Renewable Energy , 165 N.Y.U. Envtl. L.J.
1, 30 (2008) (noting that, “[f]ollowing the oil embargo in the 1970s, there
was a flurry of activity and legislation passed in various states addressing solar
energy”).
21 See Prah v. Maretti , 321 N.W.2d 182, 184 (1982).
22 See id. at 185.
23 Id. at 184.
24 Id. at 189-90.
25 Id. at 191.