Torrance council grants appeal to allow ground-mounted solar on Skyline Mobile Home Park open space after public opposition

The Torrance City Council voted in Aug. 2025 to grant an appeal and direct staff to return with a resolution approving a modification to an open-space easement so that ground-mounted solar panels can be installed on part of the Skyline Mobile Home Park property at 2550 Pacific Coast Highway.

The site in question is an undeveloped, irregularly shaped portion of the mobile home park that staff said measures roughly 3.9 acres; the applicant proposed installing ground-mounted solar panels on approximately 1.5 acres of that area. Applicant representatives said the array would include roughly 700 panels, cost about $2 million and be privately funded; project proponents told the council the system would “effectively generate enough energy to power” most of the park in a calendar year.

Staff told the council the Planning Commission previously denied the requested modification (MOD 23‑00010) to a recorded parcel‑map note during a 5–2 vote and referred the decision to the City Council on appeal. Planning staff said the map note recorded in 2014 created an open-space easement for the 3.9-acre area; the easement text recorded with the parcel map did not include the specific perpetuity language and development restrictions staff later saw in the environmental review documents for the larger Chandler Rolling Hills Country Club project. That inconsistency — the existence of an easement note on the parcel map but no separately recorded, detailed open‑space covenant — is central to the dispute.

Project proponents and their counsel argued the proposed solar installation is allowed by the city’s recently adopted solar ordinance and is consistent with the property’s PUB (public/quasi-public/open space) general‑plan designation because the ordinance and plan contemplate utilities as an allowable public-serving use. Attorney Greg Powers, representing the applicant, cited the Solar Rights Act (Gov. Code § 65850.5) and told the council the state law generally requires administrative approval of solar installations unless a local jurisdiction can make a narrow, objective finding of an unmitigable public health or safety impact. “This project, under state law, falls under the Solar Rights Act,” Powers said.

Opponents — including many nearby homeowners and community members who said they bought their properties because the hillside remained open space — urged the council to deny the modification. Speakers raised concerns about hill stability and the site’s history of erosion and landslides, glare and visual impacts, heat‑island effects in a neighborhood that already runs hotter than surrounding areas, and the lack of a plain recorded easement that defines permitted uses. One nearby homeowner noted the parcel was meant to remain “natural open space” in prior environmental documents and asked the council to preserve the view and the public amenity.

Council members debated the competing legal claims and the lack of detailed recorded easement language. Several council members said the core question was not the solar technology itself but whether the city should approve an amendment to an easement that staff concluded was intended to preserve natural open space “in perpetuity.” Staff noted that when the council does bring the resolution back it will include an indemnification clause to protect the city; the council directed staff to return a resolution approving the amendment with that standard indemnification language.

The council motion to uphold the appeal, bring back a resolution approving the easement modification to allow the solar installation, and determine the project exempt from CEQA carried, with Councilmembers Gerson and Sheikh recorded as voting no. Councilmembers who voted in favor noted the city’s solar ordinance and state law encouraging solar, while dissenting members cited unresolved easement questions and community concerns.

What council will do next: Staff will prepare the resolution for a future council meeting that would implement the easement modification and include indemnification language; staff estimated applicant-provided technical studies and city review could take several weeks to complete before the return hearing.

Why it matters: The decision sets a precedent for how Torrance reconciles a recently adopted solar ordinance and state Solar Rights Act with older open-space easement language in subdivision maps and EIRs. The contentious hearing highlighted tensions between renewable-energy goals, private property owners’ rights, and neighbors’ concerns about hillside stability and visual impacts.