Hundreds of new apartments, townhouses and single-family homes are on the drawing board or under construction in southeastern Connecticut, a building boomlet fueled in part by growth in the region’s defense industry.

And even as developers look to cash in on that ballooning demand, the state is prodding each town to put at least 10% of its housing in reach of lower-income families. The result so far: a mix of old and new ideas, financial incentives and, in some cases, outright begging.

Bigger southeastern Connecticut towns, like Groton and New London, already meet the 10% threshold. So The Day decided to take a look at what’s going on in a handful of surrounding towns -- Montville, Waterford, Stonington and East Lyme -- where the affordable housing rate hovers at around 5%.

We spoke with four planning departments about current projects in their towns, as well as their strategies to reach the state’s affordable housing objectives. Of the roughly 1,510 units in the works in these towns, fewer than 300 are considered affordable, meaning the rent would amount to 30% or less of a household’s income.

Waterford: ‘Please, please, please’

Closing his eyes, placing his hands together, and pleading: “Please, please, please,” Town Planner Mark Wujtewicz demonstrates how Waterford tries to convince developers to include affordable housing in their plans.

Waterford’s Planning and Zoning Commission has six approved and under-construction projects with 86 affordable units dispersed throughout, increasing Waterford’s current affordable housing percentage of 5.6%.

“The best way is to work ahead to get the town’s goals across to the developer. Hopefully, they can incorporate it into their project,” said Planning Director Jonathan Mullen on asking developers to include affordable units.

A key incentive for affordable housing is a state statute, known as 830-g, which allows affordable-housing developers to override local zoning decisions in towns that haven’t reached the state’s 10% goal.

The approved Clark Lane Community will have 47 rental units, of which 14 are affordable, adjacent to Clark Lane Middle School. It was incentivized by the ability to override Waterford’s zoning through the 830-g statute, Mullen said.

Next to Target on Hartford Turnpike, Brookside Commons is constructing 40 units, 30 of them affordable. Further down the turnpike is Waterford Heights, will have 284 market-rate apartments.

Forty-two affordable units are approved for the Waterford Central, Ivy Hill Village and Waterford Woods projects, which are respectively located at 61 Myrock Ave., 48 Great Neck Road, and 384 and 394 Willetts Ave. In total, these three apartments will have 460 units.

Stonington: Creating incentives

Construction of The Glennon, an approved South Broad Street “830-g apartment building” with 70 market rate and 30 affordable units, has been postponed due to funding issues, said Town Planner Clifton Iler. The building plans call for a four-story development in front of Brookside Village, an existing row of single-level townhouses, Iler said.

On Perkins Farm Drive, 123 market-rate units are under construction for the Harbor Heights II project. On Mary Hall Road, 42 single-family, market-rate units will be under construction by the beginning of 2024, Iler said.

Stonington’s Zoning Commission is re-writing zoning laws with new affordable housing incentives which could include tax cuts for affordable housing owners and diverting some of Stonington’s property tax revenue towards affordable housing, according to Iler and the town’s affordable housing plan.

“There aren’t localized incentives to create affordable housing,” Iler said, explaining the town’s 6.07% affordable housing. “That doesn’t mean we don’t want that. I just don’t think it’s possible, the way our ordinances are currently written.“

An 82-unit affordable senior-housing project replacing the old Campbell Grain factory building was declared “dead in the water” this past July due to lack of funding, Iler said.

Located at 27 West Broad St. and 15 Coggswell St., this project could have provided seniors with walking access to the downtown Westerly, its train station and the Pawcatuck River, according to a 2021 proposal overview. Although the project is on pause without a developer, it’s approved by the town and could be built by other developers in the future, Iler said.

Montville: ‘Getting creative’

Renovating office buildings, creating mobile home communities and dividing residential lots all contribute to Montville’s six current approved and under-construction housing developments, said Land Use and Development Director Liz Burdick.

Five percent of the town’s current housing is affordable, according to its affordable housing plan, and 103 affordable units are under construction.

Forty-six new affordable senior living units are under construction at Millwood Mobile Homes on Old Colchester Road. Historic cotton mills at 42 Pink Row will be transformed into 72 multi-family units, 57 of them affordable.

Also under construction at 303 Route 32 are two renovated commercial buildings with a mix of one and two bedroom apartments and a 22-unit multi-family project down the road at 245 Route 32. Three buildings under construction on Jerome Road will include 160 multi-family, market-rate apartments.

In an effort to create more housing options, Montville is subdividing five housing lots, including a “cluster subdivision” to create 32 individual lots out of the land at 316 Chapel Hill Road, said Burdick.

“Getting creative” pushes Montville closer to its housing “action plan” which includes diversifying housing supply and increasing options for elderly residents, Burdick said.

East Lyme: ‘Preserve the charm’

Tractors are burrowing into a grassy lot on North Bride Brook Road to construct Brookside Apartments, an 830-g project with 24 affordable apartments and 56 market rate ones.

Elsewhere, the Zoning Commission’s push to “preserve the charm” of East Lyme and make “the right decision for the farmland” have recently halted other projects which included affordable options.

Five percent of the town’s housing is affordable.

A decades-long, largely environmentally-based dispute left a proposed development of 840 units in the Oswegatchie Hills, 30% of them set aside as affordable, up in the air. Another project on Holmes Road for 43 units, 12 affordable, was rejected in July.

However, a Main Street project for 18 market-rate apartments above shops was approved. A commission decision in May prohibited any more three-story buildings with apartments above shops to be built downtown in the future to maintain the small-town character of Main Street.

Maintaining East Lyme’s “physical, aesthetic, and cultural character” is listed first on the town’s “guiding principals for affordable housing” written in their affordable housing plan.

“Obviously, there’s people looking to move in, and they want to move in now,” Zoning Official Bill Mulholland said, explaining the importance of creating more housing opportunities while still preserving the town’s character.

Editor’s note: This report was updated to clarify the location and affordability of the proposed developments in East Lyme.