Notwithstanding any provision of this chapter or the regulations adopted under this chapter, a local board of education in a town that is a distressed municipality, as defined in § 32-9p, with a population greater than ninety thousand shall be eligible to submit a consolidated school construction grant application for multiple school projects and be eligible to receive a single grant equal to the state share of total project costs. Based on a determination by the Office of Policy and Management that any such municipality is unable to reasonably issue debt to finance the local share of such costs, discretionary federal block grant funds may be deemed to have financed the local share of total project costs without regard to any zone restrictions that may limit the actual expenditure of such funds to specific schools. Notwithstanding the provisions of subdivision (18) of § 10-282, projects whose eligibility is provided for under this section may be considered renovations for purposes of receiving state grants.