"What we need is a town-house zone that deals specifically with those projects that have interior housing off the main public street," Mr. Lee said.
The same is true in Branford, which just adopted incentive housing zone regulations and has submitted them for state approval.
People in North Haven also objected to Mario and Donna DiGioia's proposal to create an incentive housing zone on a 15-acre parcel they own on Middletown Avenue.
The housing zone must also allow for a density of 6 single-family, 10 duplex or 20 multifamily units per acre.
Under the HOME program, towns are eligible for grants of up to $2,000 per unit once they adopt the housing zone regulations.
Administrators now hope to resume incentive payments, this time to encourage towns to adopt the housing zone regulations and begin issuing building permits.
Mr. Desai already has one project to point to: The first development to be built in a state-approved incentive housing zone opens this month in Old Saybrook.
The difficulty curve starts off shallow – zone some houses, zone some places for the people in the houses to work, zone some places for the people to spend money earned while working, try not to let things catch on fire too much – but increases as layers of complexity are added to the simulation.
Simsbury, too, is considering taking part, and has identified three sites for possible redevelopment as incentive housing zones.
By that time, about 50 communities had received technical assistance grants to help them create high-density "incentive housing zones," but only 9 have since followed through.
It wants new housing zones to be linked with infrastructure projects such as road and rail in order to maximise productivity.
