Sincere apologies for not answering your post earlier,
Bryan; quite honestly in all the hurly-burly of the big Emperor competition I completely missed it. So... ICU was a website that ran competitions, unfortunately it has now closed down
I don't recall a city block building competition there, but I could well be wrong.Generally speaking, here we try to run regular competitions over all the city building games (Caesar III, Pharaoh/Cleo, Zeus/Poseidon and now Emperor); they follow a format of building a city and trying to maximise some aspect of the city in a given time, or possibly completing a given task in the quickest time.
For information on small housing blocks, I think you will get a better response in the appropriate 'game help' forum.
"Can I draw you a beer, Norm?"
"No, I know what they look like. Just pour me one."
Cheers !!