Maximize the development of affordable housing in "transit villages."

These transit villages would also be given a chance to get $100,000 in funding to continue the station's development.

The state is aggressively promoting transit villages, using the designation to encourage high-density development.

The bigger payoff comes when the most successful transit villages have been able to leverage that designation into millions of dollars in private investment.

From 2002 to 2005, the program received $1 million annually, but no state money was earmarked for transit villages for the current fiscal year.

"And towns say, now that I'm a transit village, developers will want to come here."

The transit villages that have been most successful are ones that have spent years planning and building community support.

This year she received annual reports from 9 of the 17 previously named transit villages.

The town is working with the state's Transportation Department to build a "transit village" on a parking lot adjacent to the train station.

The purpose is to move parking to a vertical platform from the ground level areas where a transit village will be built.