For nearly a century, the houses of Chesterfield Road seemed to run down a steep cobblestoned hill in Oakland. When the neighborhood appeared ready to follow, Oakland Planning & Development Corp. stepped in.

Tony Tye, Post-Gazette Oakland Planning & Development Corp. has renovated 26 houses on Chesterfield Road in Oakland. Click photo for larger image. More information For more information on the houses on Chesterfield Road or other projects by Oakland Planning & Development Corp., call 412-621-7863 or go to www.oaklandplanning.org.

"A street once dominated by homeowners was almost all rental," said real estate program manager Kelly Hoffman. "We saw a need and an opportunity."

In 1996, when the nonprofit community organization bought its first house on Chesterfield, only three of the 96 properties on the one-block street were owner-occupied. The rest were blighted and overpopulated, mostly by students attending nearby Carlow University or the University of Pittsburgh.

Now, nine years later, OPDC has rehabbed and sold 22 of the brick row houses and will have four more available by the end of August. Each has three bedrooms and a full bath and will sell for $85,500. Depending on buyers' income, they may qualify for a $30,000 second mortgage whose repayment rate drops the longer they live there.

Hoffman said most of the previous buyers were single people looking to buy their first home, many working nearby at UPMC or the colleges. That description fits David Nauen, 32, a graduate student in neurobiology who can see his workplace, Pitt's Bioscience Tower, from his front steps.

"It's a 90-second commute on foot," he said.

Last summer, the Syracuse, N.Y., man was walking down Chesterfield, looking for a bigger apartment than the one-bedroom he was renting in South Oakland. Then he saw a For Sale sign for six houses OPDC was rehabbing.

"When you figure the space and factor in utilities, it's comparable to renting," he said.

	Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette Bottom: David Nauen is enjoying the neighborhood of his renovated house on Chesterfield Road in Oakland. Top: The forlorn look of one of the houses on Chesterfield Road at the beginning of construction, right, contrasts sharply with the tidy line of houses below. Click photos for larger image.

Nauen ended up buying a house near the top of the street for $77,500 and moved in in December. Like the four houses that will be available soon, it is all new inside, with a decorative (non-working) fireplace in the living room, neutral-colored paint and carpeting and vinyl windows and siding on the upper story.

The kitchen has light-stained oak cabinets, laminate countertops and a vinyl tile floor. Each house has a one-year warranty on construction, finishes and equipment. Jonpar Corp. was the contractor on the last six houses; John Hancock Contracting is doing these four.

Nauen, who has planted several rose bushes in the narrow band of grass behind his house, likes the neighborhood, a mix of black and white singles, couples and families with children. Though all the attached houses have the same floor plans, their owners have individualized the facades with paint, stucco, siding, Tudor timbering and a variety of awnings and roofs.

Before the OPDC began its work on Chesterfield, some houses had sat empty for 20 years or more. UPMC donated 17 it owned to OPDC and tore down two that were too far gone to save. A small parklet was later created on that land.

Most of the houses were structurally sound, however, and the nonprofit organization wasn't the only one that noticed. Other people were also buying, rehabbing and moving in. Counting those private sales and the four houses OPDC will soon sell, Chesterield will be 37 percent owner-occupied, about the same as the rest of West Oakland, Hoffman said.

The OPDC then will refocus on its other projects in Uptown and West and South Oakland. Noting that three of the four Chesterfield houses are already under contract, Hoffman doesn't expect the houses will be for sale long.

"We've never had to aggressively market here," she said.