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Saying the town needs to figure out how to keep from backsliding on its affordable housing commitments, Farmington officials are proposing a moratorium on new residential development.

The proposals will get their first hearing at the next meeting of Farmington’s Planning & Zoning Commission Jan. 9.

The Hartford Courant first reported the proposals.

The twin moratoriums on single-family and multifamily development would last a year, and would ostensibly give local officials time to research and propose ways to make or encourage developers to include more income-restricted units in their buildings.

The town has been living through something of a boom in development proposals recent years thanks to its proximity to job centers and its own, massive UConn Health hospital and medical school complex.

Farmington’s 2021 affordable housing production plan says the town had 881 units of affordable housing as of 2020, or just shy of 8 percent of its total housing stock. Despite this, the document says, Farmington had 2,950 households, 28 percent of all households, that made less than 80 percent of area median income that year and therefore could conceivably qualify for affordable housing. This includes 1,890 households who made less than 50 percent of area median income, 1,090 of whom were renters.

The Farmington Housing Authority has a three- to five-year waiting list for units in its own affordable housing complex and reports a seven-year waiting list for the housing vouchers it administers.

Ideas floated in the town affordable housing plan included easing or eliminating Farmington’s restrictive regulations for accessory dwelling units, adding an inclusionary zoning requirement that mandates developers set aside up to 12 percent of their units for affordable housing and streamline the design review and permitting processes for multifamily development.