HAMDEN It was a telling moment in the hot and cold relationship between Quinnipiac University and the town strained by a zoning dispute arising, as they usually do, from the school's unbridled growth over the years.

There was university President John Lahey, who is called a visionary even by critics, delivering the school's first annual $750,000 voluntary payment for town services to Mayor Scott Jackson on Thursday morning.

"Quinnipiac University is proud to call Hamden home," Lahey said after the check presentation. "Providing this voluntary payment is an affirmation of the university's ongoing support and appreciation of all that Hamden does for Quinnipiac."

At the same time, the university was spending another day in violation at least according to the town of a 2006 agreement to house all of its students on campus. The university, subject to a fine of $150 per day since being cited last month, is appealing.

The two poles in the marriage were neatly represented here: tremendous economic and social benefits to the town, but difficulty in getting along day to day.

The complicated coupling has earned Quinnipiac and Hamden a place in the lexicon of town-gown relations in Connecticut, not as fiery as the struggle between New Haven and Yale University before Mayor John DeStefano and Yale President Rick Levin turned things around in the 1990s, but simmering, to the point where Jackson said something has to be done.

"We agree on 90 percent plus of the points that come up, but the less than 10 percent is important to resolve. We have to communicate better," said Jackson, after accepting the $1.23 million check from Lahey. The amount included the $750,000 payment and about $400,000 that the school already pays annually for extra-duty police, fire and emergency medical services.

Jackson said any unease flowing between the town and the university "always, always" comes back to the party houses the homes in single-family neighborhoods that are owned by absentee landlords and rented to up to four students. Sometimes, though, a fifth or sixth student slides in, even a seventh or an eighth, Divided so many ways, the rent is cheaper than living on campus and makes it an attractive arrangement for the kids.

Residents in Middletown, Hartford, West Hartford, New London, New Haven, West Haven, Fairfield, Bridgeport, Storrs, New Britain, Willimantic, and Danbury may recognize this. It doesn't take too many 2 a.m. keg parties, which often bring the police and sometimes ambulances, for the students to make a deep and indelibly negative mark on the neighborhood.

Hamden town planner Leslie Creane calls it the "disassembling" of single-family routines and rhythms. She doesn't begrudge the students their good times, only the relatively few rowdy ones.

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Town Vs. Gown: Student Housing Strains Quinnipiac-Hamden Relationship