The city yesterday announced a crackdown on squalid housing conditions in parts of Oakland, with Deputy Mayor Yarone Zober personally pointing out eyesores and hazards during an hourlong tour of a neighborhood heavy with student rentals.

Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Deputy Mayor Yarone Zober, center, and Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg, right, listen to David Blenk, executive director of the Oakland Planning and Development Corp., while touring the neighborhood yesterday. Click photo for larger image. Related article Deputy mayor walks Oakland, talks O'Connor line

With the news media in tow, Mr. Zober and University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg got a firsthand look at blight not far from the sprawling campus, from discarded furniture and piles of garbage heaped high on the street to boarded up windows and decaying exteriors.

They also saw a smattering of owner-occupied homes, including one on Atwood Street whose garden was so neatly tended some saw it as emblematic of what Oakland once was and what it could be with increased city attention.

As the two leaders spoke, each pledging efforts to improve the area, a gaggle of city aides followed close behind, scribbling notes on violations and talking into cell phones to prepare for an enforcement sweep expected later this week and early next week.

In June, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette profiled persistent housing woes in the area -- including some of the streets on yesterday's tour -- and described a city-university effort to beef up code enforcement that had become confused in its objective.

Before he was diagnosed with cancer last month, Mayor Bob O'Connor said he was stepping up enforcement, and in his absence yesterday, Mr. Zober made clear the city's intent to follow through.

"The administration and Mayor O'Connor, we're very interested in getting this area as 'redd up' as it can be," Mr. Zober said, mentioning the name of the mayor's cleanup campaign. "We have a lot of garbage to be picked up [and there's] public safety issues, fires and making sure the units are zoned properly."

He also vowed an assault on graffiti.

Mr. Nordenberg said Pitt will do its part. He pointed to a decade-long push to construct 1,700 new on-campus beds, an expansion Pitt says has softened the off-campus market and, thus, added pressure on landlords to better maintain their properties to compete for student renters.

The chancellor said he's thrilled the city appears open to devoting more resources to enforcing code violations in Oakland.

"The problems here aren't unique. I've seen them in each of the cities that my own children have been students in," he said. "The problems here are manageable, and so if we begin to attack them together, I think we can make a real difference.

"We're excited about the attention and are willing to make investments ourselves in energy, people and, if necessary, more money," he said.

Under a 1997 agreement with the administration of Mayor Tom Murphy, Pitt said it began paying half the salary and benefits of a city inspector in hopes of providing safer student housing. But the Post-Gazette reported that the inspector's focus, in fact, has been on new construction and issues of crowding and that code compliance was secondary.

During the previous year, code violation notices issued in Oakland went down, from 303 in 2004 to 236 last year, the newspaper reported.

Ron Graziano, chief of the city Bureau of Building Inspection, said the city has 10 inspectors for 32 city wards and that the inspector in Oakland also must handle the entire South Side.

"I'd love to have a full-time inspector in Oakland," he said.

Mr. Graziano said that on Friday, and perhaps on Monday, eight to 10 inspectors will fan out across central Oakland -- the largest deployment of inspectors there he could recall -- looking for "as many violations as we can possibly see."

The blitz, also expected to touch South Oakland, is being timed to coincide with the move-in of Pitt students in advance of the Aug. 28 start of fall classes.

Inspectors, who need permission or probable cause to enter a dwelling, hope students will invite them in to examine conditions like whether there are working smoke detectors and adequate means of escaping fires, Mr. Graziano said.

Officials yesterday said they will ensure that a city lawyer is present for Housing Court hearings to see that enforcement interests are met. They want Pitt law students to lend support and help.

Yesterday's tour, which also included community group representatives, passed the Meyran Avenue apartment where a fire last month killed 20-year-old chef Mario El Nimri.

Within an hour of the tour, city workers were going up and down streets photographing garbage and graffiti violations in advance of issuing citations.

Some longtime residents like Rose Andreoli, 76, want to believe relief is in sight.

"This used to be beautiful," she said of her surroundings. "Now it's junk."

Said Pitt senior Andy Reid, 21, of Memphis, Tenn.: "I think it's a good idea, but I don't know how far they're going to get. It would have to be a sustained, consistent, yearlong effort."