December 2, 2008
Tuesday
     

The Right to Dry: Clothesline Advocates Battle Developers, Residents

Date: 09-19-2007
Type: news brief
Category: Environment
 Source: The Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal
Organization:
The Wall Street Journal
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 the 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.

Alexander Lee, founder of clothesline advocacy group Project Laundry List in Concord, N.H., says the clothesline movement is "an outgrowth of interest in what-can-I-do environmentalism." Mr. Lee says he gets more and more email seeking advice on how to hang a clothesline despite neighborhood covenants restricting them.

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. 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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