When the Dupont Commons affordable housing development was approved 15 years ago in the Fort Dupont neighborhood of Southeast Washington DC, housing density required that a substantial parcel be left open to meet building codes. That land became something of a blight; it required basic maintenance, accrued stormwater management fees, and was littered with garbage and illegal dumping. Joe Naroditsky, Director of Solar Programs for CPA, spent two and a half years pitching the land to solar companies, but kept hearing that the terrain wasn’t ideal for solar panel placement and that the project seemed daunting because the costs of development were uncertain. 

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