In the St. Clair neighborhood in Pittsburgh’s South Side–a community struggling with poverty and filled with vacant lots–it can be hard to attract new residents. A development in planning now will try something new to achieve that: a housing complex will come with its own 23-acre urban farm.

Built on the site of a housing project that was demolished in 2009, the mixed income development Hilltop Farm will include an orchard, incubator farm plots for aspiring farmers, community gardens and shared plots, a youth farm, greenhouses, a farmers’ market, and fields devoted to growing produce to deliver to people living in the townhomes on the property and to others in the city.

“When you work in distressed markets that need some driver for new residents, one thing that we’ve seen is a real desire to live near well-managed green space assets,” says Aaron Sukenik, executive director of the Hilltop Alliance, a local nonprofit community advocacy group that is coordinating the plan for the farm. “That can manifest as a greenway, or public park, or a trail network, but what really hasn’t been borne out locally . . . is an urban agriculture hub.”

Housing centered around a farm, sometimes called an “agri-hood,” isn’t new. But Sukenik says the project is unique because it’s close to the urban core of Pittsburgh, the housing is designed to be affordable, and the project is meant to drive community and economic development in the area. (In Detroit, a smaller urban farm run by the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative is also designed to support nearby blocks, but doesn’t include a plan for new housing.)

“In a way, this will also be a defining asset for the neighborhoods that surround this place,” Sukenik says. In time, as more people move there, other vacant lots could also be redeveloped.

The project is also designed to immediately benefit neighbors who already live nearby. Right now, much of the area could be considered a food desert, with little access to fresh produce. Nearly half of households live on less than $10,000 a year, and many lack cars. When the farm is complete, some neighbors will be able to grow food themselves, or sign up for a CSA (community-supported agriculture) subscription that delivers produce as it’s harvested. Because the area has a refugee population that is used to farming communally, some of the community plots are larger than they would be in a typical community garden. An on-site farm stand will take SNAP benefits as it sells seasonal produce.

“This is a way of having increased access to affordable and culturally appropriate food,” says Jake Seltman, executive director of Grow Pittsburgh, an urban farming organization that helped study the feasibility of the farm for Hilltop Alliance along with Penn State Extension, and which helped lead community planning for the project. “We talk about food poverty, and space where people can grow their own food and know where it comes from, regardless of whether there’s a grocery store nearby, has a huge value.”