BAR HARBOR – The local economy has benefited plenty over the past 10 to 15 years from the rise in local property values.

Houses in downtown Bar Harbor that in the early 1990s cost less than $100,000 sell now for around $250,000, despite the recent lull in the housing market.

But it has had an effect on the ability of low- to moderate-income people to buy property in Bar Harbor and other towns on Mount Desert Island, which needs such people to keep its many businesses and communities afloat. Other Maine coastal towns, especially those with an abundance of valuable oceanfront property that wealthy seasonal residents want to buy, are facing identical situations.

Bar Harbor is one town, at least, that has decided to try to counter this trend. With the support of local residents, the town decided this summer to contribute up to $1 million toward an affordable housing project near Northeast Creek.

The Town Council also has endorsed a proposal that would require developers either to set aside part of their projects for affordable housing or to contribute to a fund that would help pay for separate affordable housing projects. The concept, included in the draft of the town’s updated comprehensive plan, would have to go through a series of local regulatory approvals before it goes into effect.

“It’s a big issue,” Anne Krieg, Bar Harbor’s town planner, said Wednesday about affordable housing on MDI.

A median-price home in Bar Harbor is $280,000, which is $112,000 higher than the median price for Maine, according to Krieg. To afford such a house, a person or family would have to have an annual income of $91,000, she told councilors last month.

Bar Harbor’s median income, however, is $42,000, which is only about $1,000 higher than the statewide average. A whopping 86 percent of the people who live in Bar Harbor could not afford to buy their houses today, she said. As a whole, this is true of 66 percent of Maine’s residents.

The Northeast Creek project is directly aimed at addressing this issue, according to Terrance Kelley, executive director of the Ellsworth and Mount Desert Island Housing Authority. He said the project just broke ground last week after getting its building permits from the state.

Combined with the authority’s West Eden Meadows housing complex, which was completed in 2000, and another being pursued by the Island Housing Trust in Mount Desert, MDI may have more affordable housing per capita than any other area in Maine, he said.

Kelley said the authority estimates it may end up borrowing only $280,000 from the town to complete the project, rather than a full $1 million. Local voters approved the loan at town meeting in June because most recognize that something must be done to protect Bar Harbor’s year-round community, he said.

“The idea of this is to bring people to our town and to keep them,” Kelley said. “Keep people for our schools, for the Boy Scouts, for the YMCA and the Fire Department.”

The development’s plans call for a cluster of 32 environmentally friendly housing units to be constructed off Sandy Lane near Northeast Creek. The housing authority will keep the properties affordable by retaining some degree of ownership over the units, meaning residents will have to pay only so much to be able to afford to move in.

To qualify, the people who would live in each unit must earn a combined total of $65,000 or less, and at least one person living in each unit must work on Mount Desert Island.

The houses will be built with environmentally friendly materials and energy-efficient designs, according to Kelley. Residents will have recreational access to the creek’s watershed area, much of which is protected from development by Maine Coast Heritage Trust and Acadia National Park.