(Robert Sciarrino | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

By Karen Yi | NJ Advance Media

Just beyond the elevated train tracks in Newark's Ironbound, the city's first distillery in years is making homemade gin, vodka and whiskey.

A mile north, food entrepreneurs can find inspiration inside a New York City-based culinary incubator before walking to the new part-cozy-coffeehouse, part-networking-hub called Mocha Lounge.

Yes, this is happening in Newark. And these grand openings are just a taste of the last month.

New business and development is emerging in a city that has long suffered from disinvestment and abandonment. People are finally starting to come back -- or come to Newark at all.

"There's a lot of development in the pipeline that people don't even know about," Mayor Ras Baraka said in a recent sit-down interview with NJ Advance Media. "Like incredible stuff that blows my mind about the city I grew up in."

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But amid ribbon cuttings and buzz that Amazon could open its second headquarters here, there is also the Newark where the most pressing issue is securing an affordable place to live.

More than half of Newark's children live in low-income homes. The median household income is $37,000 and only 18 percent of residents are employed in the city. Median rents have risen 20 percent since 2000 in a city where 78 percent are renters.

As new developers gobble up land and the city pushes new mandates for low- and moderate-income housing, residents at city council meetings often ask, "Who is that for?" and "Affordable for who?"

Hope of a renaissance is also inciting fear of displacement.

The challenge for the city: How to welcome needed development that is inclusive of all residents. It's a feat most cities have failed to meet and an increasingly difficult one as the country -- and Newark more deeply -- grapples with an affordable housing crisis.

"We need smart, courageous people to think about how to get this done, not just to be mad at the fact that it's happening, but to figure out how to change something that nobody has figured out," Baraka said. "I think we can collectively figure this out."

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A recent report by Rutgers University found the risk of displacement for Newarkers is already high, even though threat of gentrification remains premature.

"Displacement through gentrification comes about because cities make deliberate tax policy decisions that favor certain elements over others," said David Troutt, one of the authors of the report and director of Rutger's Center for Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity.

"A city like Newark has to exercise that same authority to protect (residents)," he added. "This is an obligation to make sure as it plans for growth, it also plans for affordability. Otherwise people disappear."

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(Source: The Rutgers Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity)

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Preserving what we have

One of the more persistent housing fights in the last year is led by the Millard E. Terrell Homes tenant association, who stopped efforts by the Newark Housing Authority to demolish the public housing complex.

The longtime residents are fighting to stay -- even as the property needs $26 million in immediate repairs and a majority of the residents want to go elsewhere.

But the preservation of subsidized and low-income homes, like Terrell, is the "single most important tool" for the city to guard against displacement, according to the 2017 Rutgers report.

"We're not trying to displace it," said Baraka, who signed a letter supporting the demolition application for the property last year. "We also don't want people to live in horrible conditions. That's the tension I have, that's the contradiction that I have."

Baraka and the NHA's new director are now working to redevelop the property so residents who want to can stay -- in better conditions.

"We have to think creatively on our side to preserve some of that, fix it up with monies that we have, engage the private sector ... and at the same time, protest, speak loudly to the federal government about investing money," Baraka said. "People can't even shower in the 21st century," he said referring to the lack of showers at Terrell. "That's like bananas."

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Lynne Patton of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is given a tour by Rita Fortenberry, a resident of Terrell Homes, a Newark housing project. Patton toured to find out why some residents want to keep their apartments in Newark, NJ. Wednesday, 03/28/2018. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

There are 23,000 units (about 20 percent) of subsidized housing in the city, the Rutgers report said, despite deep cuts to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the demolition of high-rise public housing in the 1980s.

But for the rest of the city's residents, rents continue to rise.

Median rents have increased by 20 percent since 2000, adjusted for inflation, the report found. Median household incomes, meanwhile, have dropped by 10 percent. More than 20,000 households pay more than 50 percent of their income toward rent.

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What is the city doing to protect affordability?

Baraka pushed for an inclusionary zoning ordinance to mandate certain housing developers accommodate 20 percent affordable homes. The city is creating a process to allow those developers to pay smaller developers to build affordable homes for them in areas of need.

"We're trying to figure out ways to take that wealth and redistribute it across the city and run it up the natural arteries that are going to happen anyway," Baraka said. "You're not going to stop the market, the only thing you can do is mitigate it or build a bubble so you're not crushed ... and those things have to be figured out."

The city is also working with the Urban League to identify vacant or abandoned properties that can be sold to small developers to then sell at cost to residents. About 16 percent of Newark's housing is vacant and the city has a high eviction and foreclosure rate, the Rutgers report said.

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What more can the city do?

The Rutgers report also suggested beefing up enforcement of the city's rent control rules to check whether landlords are adding extra fees. Half of the estimated 50,000 units eligible for rent control are not registered with the city, making it impossible for city workers to regulate those properties, the report said.

City leaders are not alone, community groups have mobilized to ensure low-income housing is preserved -- and expanded. Last year, a group of residents successfully petitioned the council to tighten rent control laws, increasing the threshold a landlord must spend in order to raise rents.

So, will Newark be able to strike the right balance?

"Newark can be a national model," Troutt said. "I believe that strongly, I believe that we desperately need it to succeed, to show that it is possible."

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Read more

This N.J. block is dying, one abandoned property at a time

Residents win rent control battle; landlords face steeper hurdle to raise rents

WATCH: Anger, chaos erupt at Newark council meeting over housing

N.J. won't be 'red-headed stepchild' of affordable housing, HUD vows

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Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook.