Solar panels in Wassenaar

You do not need a permit:

• If you place the panels on the property itself. There are no rules for that.
• If you place pans in the form of a yard fence. 
• If you are placing the panels in the garden, unless the garden is part of a monument or landmark building. If you are going to place a large arrangement, there may be Requirements. Check with the municipality. 
• If you place the panels on outbuildings in the backyard. Then it is allowed on the entire roof. However, there are exceptions: it is not allowed if there is a so-called "excess". That is, for example, if the panels reflect strongly so that the neighbors are bothered by them. 

You need a permit: 

• If you want to place the panels on the property itself. The Welstand and Cultural Heritage Committee will then give its advice. In principle, the panels may not be visible from the public road. 
• If you place the panels as a yard fence. The Welstand en Cultuur Erfgoed committee will then give its advice. 

You usually do not need a permit:

• If you place the panels in the garden. For example, an arrangement or buried. They may not be visible from public roads. If you are going to place a large arrangement, then there may be Requirements. Check with the municipality. 
• If you place the panels on outbuildings in the backyard: they may be on the entire roof, but they should not be conspicuously visible. 

You can install solar panels and do not need a permit to do so: 

• If you are replacing existing panels.
• If you place panels in the garden. They may not be visible from public roads. If you are going to place a large arrangement, there may be Requirements. Check with the municipality. 
• If you place panels on outbuildings in the backyard. They are allowed on the entire roof if they are not conspicuously visible. 

To install solar panels, however, you do need a permit, including an opinion from the Welfare and Cultural Heritage Committee in the following situations:

• If your home is from just after 1970. Solar panels can then be installed on all roof surfaces.
• If the house is part of a row of at least five houses. Solar panels can then be installed on all roof surfaces.
• If you have an agricultural property whose roof is not covered with slate, thatch or tiles. Solar panels can then be installed on all roof surfaces.
• If you have a pre-1970 property that is neither agricultural nor in a row. Your solar panels should then not be visible from the public road, unless the panels and any molding are the same color as the roof tiles. Also, the panels must be placed together in a row, at the base of the roof. 
• If you want to install solar panels as an easement. 

• On the property itself: always an opinion of the Committee on Welfare and Cultural Heritage, in principle not visible from the public road;
• As a garden fence permit-free;
• In the garden permit-free, unless the garden is part of the monument or iconic building (for the larger sidings under Requirements, ask);
• On outbuildings, insofar as not monumental or image-defining: entire roof, unless there is an "excess," e.g., highly reflective so as to bother neighbors.

A. Outside the protected townscape:

• On the roof: allowed on all roof surfaces;
• Restricted arrangement in the garden: allowed in the rear yard;
• Larger arrangement in the garden: an exemption under article 4 third paragraph Annex II Bor is possible with good spatial justification;
• On outbuildings, barns, carports: the entire roof;
• As a yard fence;
• Monuments and image-defining buildings*: in principle not visible from public areas, weighted advice from the Committee for Welfare and Cultural Heritage.

B. Within the protected townscape:

• On the roofs of main buildings, outbuildings, sheds and carports: to the extent not visible from public areas. There are exceptions to this (see below);
• Restricted arrangement in the garden: allowed in the rear yard;
• Larger arrangement in the garden: an exemption under article 4 third paragraph Annex II Bor is possible with good spatial justification;
• As a yard fence;
• Monuments and image-defining buildings*: in principle not visible from public areas, weighted advice from the Committee for Welfare and Cultural Heritage.

Exceptions:

On the roof, visible from the public road, not being a monument or iconic building*, solar panels are possible in the following cases, with a positive opinion of the Committee for Welfare and Cultural Heritage:

• Post-1970 properties;
• Series construction (five or more attached houses);
• Agricultural buildings, to the extent not covered with tiles or thatch;
• Pre-1970 properties, not serial:
  o Color on color;
  o Contiguous row at eaves, using shaped pieces at corners;
  o Replacement is always possible;
  o Integrated panels are allowed (in the form of tiles or slates.

* A list of iconic buildings is attached as Appendix 2 to the Wassenaar Cultural Heritage Umbrella Plan - Buildings, Objects and Archaeology, adopted Oct. 10, 2016.