Gov. Deval Patrick, countless business leaders and many members of the Legislature have joined the chorus of voices indicating that we need to increase the state's housing stock to more effectively support our innovation economy.

And for good reason. Despite the recent slump in the housing market, countless recent surveys, polls and reports continue to show that the high cost of housing in Massachusetts is a major concern for all residents.

Massachusetts policy-makers must recognize the interdependent relationship between housing and our human life cycle, and adopt policy solutions that provide appropriate homes for residents at each stage. While the single-family home has traditionally served as the definitive symbol of The American Dream, today that dream is better defined as a succession of homes over our life cycle.

Young people leaving home for the first time typically opt to share rental apartments with friends. Many will eventually purchase a condominium - both as a home and a means of building equity. As couples marry and begin to think about a family, single homes in the suburbs become the ideal choice. But, when the children have left and retirement begins, couples may opt to trade in the large home for an active adult community or move back to the city.

So it is clear we need a range of homes to support our economy - from affordable rentals for recent graduates to smaller homes suitable for empty-nesters.

Massachusetts fails in this endeavor on many counts: We have no cohesive approach to housing production (and thus no way to know if our housing needs are being met), a town-by-town zoning system that routinely results in the lowest number of housing starts in the country, and an unwillingness to consider dense, smart-growth techniques except in urban areas.

In particular, irrational zoning and nonscientific environmental rules adopted by hundreds of communities have made it nearly impossible to develop needed housing. These regulations - ranging from large lot requirements, to septic system requirements that have no basis in science, to limits on building permits - have served only to increase land costs, thereby ensuring that only large, expensive homes are built in sprawl-inducing subdivisions.

Overzealous land-use regulation in Massachusetts is not a matter opinion; it is fact. A study by the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research that accumulated data on zoning and related rules in 187 communities led Harvard University economist Edward Glaeser to conclude that these regulations artificially drive up the price of housing in Massachusetts. The Wharton School of Management recently published a study ranking Massachusetts as the second most restrictive state in the nation with regard to regulatory hurdles and anti-development policies.

Even more importantly, local land-use regulations have made it nearly impossible to create new single-family homes that are affordable to couples employed in our health-care, life sciences, technology, education or service economies.

The result has been upheaval of our local real-estate market. The pronounced lack of supply of new houses catapulted prices dramatically through 2005, far out of the reach of our middle-class workforce. When young couples can't find a "starter home," they leave to buy homes in the other parts of the country that are ardently competing for our workforce. As a result, demand drops for existing homes, resulting in excess of 60,000 homes on the market in the state.

To many, it may seem counter-intuitive that Massachusetts must build more housing in this downturn to solve its current housing woes. However, unless we provide more homes for our future - our young, skilled workforce between 25 and 34 years old - we run the risk of disrupting the housing options available to baby boomers who overwhelmingly are existing homeowners. Their property values will suffer, and they will pay increasingly high property taxes as our state slips into a no-growth posture.

The use of cluster zoning statewide would be an effective means of producing such housing without sacrificing open space. But whatever the tool, we must develop a housing initiative that will provide homes attractive to young families. Such an initiative would restore a healthy housing market so that homeowners can have sufficient buyers for their houses.

Failure to provide this type of housing will result in further erosion of home values, and the continued exodus of a treasured asset - the very young people our region depends upon to keep the economy strong and support an aging baby-boom population.

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Mark Leff is president-elect of the Home Builders Association of Massachusetts and a senior vice president at Salem Five Bank.