HAMPDEN – As the town’s propensity for attracting subdivisions and houses with $200,000 and $300,000 price tags increases, its leaders are concerned that options for working-class families are being squeezed out.

With that in mind, Town Manager Susan Lessard will attend a workshop on Friday in Augusta to examine creating affordable housing development districts. Her hope is to bring back a way for the town council to avoid forcing potential homebuyers away from Hampden because property is too expensive.

“My concern and the concern of the council is that, over time, a healthy community must have a cross-section of housing options so that you don’t become just one [type of community],” Lessard said Wednesday.

Friday’s workshop, hosted by the Maine Community Development Association, will examine what are known as “housing TIFs” – similar to economic development tax increment financing in that they assist housing developers with tax breaks.

A state law enacted in 2003 allows municipalities to create affordable housing districts. These housing TIFs help provide financing to developers for a variety of projects, but have been largely underutilized in the years since the option was created.

“The program has been a little slow getting started. We’re dealing with a different set of developers in general who are not familiar with the program,” Noreen Norton, director of economic finance for Eaton Peabody Consulting Group in Augusta, said Wednesday. “[Housing TIFs] help provide a means to get housing projects done where a project might not be feasible otherwise.”

Norton will facilitate Friday’s workshop for the MCDA, along with Tom MacDonald, president of MacDonald Associates Inc. of Bath, a real estate consulting firm. The MCDA is an organization designed to provide forums relating to community development issues and concerns, as well as to educate and train through workshops.

Hampden is one of the few communities in Greater Bangor that saw a population increase for the 2000 Census, according to Lessard. However, the town’s per capita income also went from 51st in the state to 11th during that time and, not surprisingly, Hampden’s housing prices have gone up.

“The predominance of housing stock that we’re seeing being created, it’s pretty homogenous, it’s geared towards the more affluent higher-income levels,” Lessard said. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but there also needs to be a place for people who are just starting out.”

Projects such as housing TIFs deal more with urban areas rather than rural ones, something Hampden has yet to transition into, according to town planner Bob Osborne.

“The more potential there is for developers to compete, the more urban type of housing lots make sense and that might help to hold the prices down,” Osborne said.

“We have a bit of an oversupply of rural lots, but no real urban lots.”