Pittsburgh City Council tentatively approved new tax incentives for housing for the disabled yesterday that a city planner said are the first of their kind in the nation.

The incentives are supposed to promote the "visitability" of disabled persons to either new or renovated city homes. Through the measure, any structure hit with a property tax increase because of disabled-related building improvements will receive up to a $2,500 tax credit over five years.

The credit is only on city property taxes, not Pittsburgh Public Schools or Allegheny County taxes. Murphy administration and City Council officials want to lobby the schools and the county to provide the incentives, too.

"This is not only the right thing to do, but would become a wonderful marketing tool if Pittsburgh becomes known as being visitable," council President Gene Ricciardi said.

"We're no longer the most livable city, so we're the most visitable," Councilman Sala Udin remarked, referring to the "Most Livable City" tag Pittsburgh won from Rand McNally almost 20 years ago.

When homes are built or renovated, their values go up and so do their property taxes. Under this plan, if the Pittsburgh property taxes grew after the visitability improvements, up to $2,500 of taxes, total, would be waived over five years.

For example, if a property's taxes grew by $500 annually after the improvements, the homeowner could chop up the $2,500 credit into five pieces and not be hit with a city property tax increase for five years. If taxes grew by $1,000 annually, the credit would cover the tax increase for two years and leave $500 to help pay off the third year.

The improvements could include wheelchair ramps, wider doors, accessible rest rooms, and lower light switches and door handles. The improvements only have to be on the first floors of homes -- thus, they improve their "visitability" by disabled guests.

Home builders or homeowners would apply for the credit when obtaining city building permits.

Former city Councilman Jim Ferlo, now a state senator, introduced the city's first visitability ordinance shortly before leaving office in late 2002. The law would have required all homes built or substantially renovated with city assistance to include the disabled-related improvements.

Home builders and housing agencies, including the city's own Urban Redevelopment Authority, criticized the measure, saying it would drive up housing costs, especially for low-income homeowners. They also said the city's hilly terrain and old-fashioned housing stock would make improvement difficult, and the proposed law went nowhere.

City officials and a task force of disabled and housing advocates went back to the drawing board and came up with the tax incentive idea. While other cities have approved visitability ordinances like the one Ferlo proposed, the tax incentive idea is a new twist, senior city planner Richard Meritzer said.

Instead of forcing home builders to add the improvements, the tax credit tries to strike a balance by making it worth their while.

"What this does is it encourages people to build or renovate with visitability in mind," Meritzer told council.

A final vote is set for Tuesday.