The Atlanta BeltLine, one of the city’s hottest properties and increasingly home to housing costing half a million and up, is pushing hard to get hundreds of affordable housing units opened or in the pipeline in the coming months.

The stretch of trails and greenspace that will eventually make up the 22-mile loop inside the city has been a boon for home construction in Atlanta and has put the BeltLine in the bullseye of discussions about housing affordability.

While affordability and gentrification is an issue across the city, the Beltline has been seen as a driving force behind a renewed interest in Intown living. Once affordable communities along the BeltLine, such as Old Fourth Ward, are seeing housing prices start at $500,000 to $700,000 and up, and that has led to concerns that neighborhoods in the BeltLine’s path — such as Adair Park or Vine City — could be next.

“Atlanta and a lot of cities in the southeast are starting to deal with the problems of housing affordability that places like Boston and New York have been tackling for while,” said Tina Lowe, president of the southeast division of Mercy Housing, whose organization recently opened a building for seniors on the BeltLine’s eastside trail.

Read the full article at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.