The Falmouth Town Council, acting on community input about the need for affordable workforce housing in town, has begun exploring what role the town should play in creating it.

The recent wrap-up of the town’s Visions and Values project pointed to the need, and data from MaineHousing shows a gap between home sale prices in town and household income, Councilor Peter LaFond said.

The median sale price of a home in Falmouth in 2021 was $750,000, according to MaineHousing. An income of $202,033 is needed to afford a median-priced home, but the median income in Falmouth in 2021 was $128,723. Someone earning the median income can afford a home that costs $477,855, but of the 141 homes sold in Falmouth in 2021, only 29 were that price or less.

The final Visions and Values report showed that about 60% of residents support more affordable housing for lower- and middle-income residents, as opposed to 20% of residents who “felt strongly that Falmouth should aim exclusively on preserving and enhancing existing home values.”

Last month LaFond posed the idea of building affordable workforce housing on an approximately 20-acre, town-owned site on Woods Road behind the police station.

“It may be that we have an opportunity here to increase workforce housing in Falmouth with a particular site in mind, rather than just being hypothetical,” LaFond said.

“We want people who work in town to also be able to live here affordably and have our community enriched by those folks, like teachers, police officers, firefighters,” he said. “It’s better as a general matter to have firefighters, police, teachers, living here and not remotely. It seems like a good idea and the time has come.”

Other councilors agreed with the timing, but some had concerns about the specific Woods Road site. Currently in the farm and forest zoning district, rather than in a “designated growth area,” it has stricter parameters that might deter developers, they said. Possibly, it could be rezoned to  promote “significant increased density” to attract developers, they said.

Environmental considerations at that site, at this point undetermined, must also be taken into consideration, they said.

Councilor Jay Trickett said other sites should be considered. The town owns multiple parcels of land, purchased as part of its open space goals, that could be used for workforce housing instead or in addition to the Woods Road site, he said.

“Why’s this the only piece of land where we’re willing to explore this?” Trickett asked. “Are there other sites, when you look at our map of open space, that are really amenable to public access, as well as habitat and conservation?”

Locating affordable housing at the Woods Road site “does not change the mix in any statistical way. If the town has a role in workforce housing, we have to do more than Woods Road,” he said.

Councilor Hope Cahan stressed that affordable housing should be located where its residents would have access to public transit, as well as trails and safe sidewalks.

Councilors Tommy Johnson and Janice DeLima will take the next steps with the Woods Road proposal, exploring its possibility as a workforce housing site with town staff.

In addition to workforce housing, the Visions and Values surveys showed support for senior housing, Chairwoman Amy Kuhn noted, “so those are two content areas to focus on.”

Workforce housing would benefit the town, she said.

” We have the opportunity to get a leg up in the recruitment and retention of excellent employees long into the future,” Kuhn said.

“Looking ahead, the things we need to focus on and weigh the pros and cons of is our impact on schools, traffic, the environment and budget, she said. “We also need to recognize that we don’t know what we don’t know. It would be really helpful to connect with the Maine Municipal Association to find out what benchmark concerns there are that we should look at.”

Freelance writer Rachel Vitello is a Portland resident.