Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's Earth Day present to the city is a "Green Team" assigned to beautifying vacant lots and demolition sites.

The five-man team within the Department of Public Works represents a new twist on the years-old problem of keeping the city's many abandoned properties from turning into weed fields, and an effort to use both nature and market data to boost community development prospects.

"As we use more resources to take down more condemned buildings, the land that remains cannot be an eyesore that hinders neighborhood development," said Mr. Ravenstahl. "Land is an asset, and should be used to improve the quality of life for our citizens."

"You've got neighborhoods all over the city that can use a green strategy to improve market values," said city Neighborhood Initiatives Director Kim Graziani. Under the administration's raze-and-plant strategy, a dilapidated house "is gone, and then you see a green footprint."

On Friday, the new five-member Green Team was out on a test run, spreading topsoil and planting grass at the corner of Hazelwood Avenue and Monongahela Street. It was the site of two long-abandoned houses that were torn down as part of an unprecedented 59-building demolition blitz in Hazelwood.

Next door, Deloris Livsey pronounced herself "really pleased that those houses are gone." A 24-year resident of Monongahela Street and a board member of the community group Hazelwood Initiative, she hopes the neighborhood will adopt the site and turn it into "maybe a nice little park for the kids."

The creation of the Green Team follows a year-long series of beautification pilot projects including plantings, gardens, or greenways in Larimer, Manchester, Beechview, Brighton Heights and the Hill District. It also coincides with an effort to demolish some 600 condemned homes this year, in part using the neighborhood blitz strategy that may now move from Hazelwood to the South Hills.

Ms. Graziani said the city hopes it can "green-up" some 100 sites in a year, many drawn from the demolition list. "You want to look for the low-hanging fruit," she said. "What are going to be the properties that are the most visible?"

The high-tech end is the use of market data crunched by a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization called The Reinvestment Fund under a contract with the Urban Redevelopment Authority. The data is now being forged into maps that the administration hopes will help guide neighborhood development efforts.

If the market data suggests that a vacant lot can best improve the neighborhood by being merged into adjacent woods, the Green Team can help that process along by planting trees. If, on the other hand, data suggests the parcel could be a "green node" around which construction could occur, the URA will try to make that happen, said Rob Stephany, the agency's interim executive director.

The team also could clean up a lot while the administration markets it to neighboring property owners as a side yard. "That is the ultimate goal, to get these properties back on the tax rolls," Ms. Graziani said.

The muscle part is coordinated by city Redd-Up Campaign Manager Kevin Quigley.

He said the city's two Redd-Up Crews will do the heavy cleanup work while the Green Team focuses on soil, vegetation, and then upkeep. It will plant grass strains that grow slowly.

Neighborhood groups, drawing on horticultural expertise from the Penn State Cooperative Extension and help from the city Neighborhood Initiatives unit, can turn the plots into gardens, play areas or mini-parks, Mr. Quigley said.

Hazelwood Avenue resident Marla Clark was glad to see dirt and seed going down on the site of what had been derelict buildings catty-corner from her home. "It was a spot where people sat and drank all day," she said.

"My concern is, is it going to be maintained, or overgrown?" she asked. For years she mowed an abandoned lot next to her home, she said, until a new house was built there -- but she can't handle the newly seeded site.

Budget cuts following the city's 2003 fiscal meltdown crippled the city's program for maintaining the thousands of vacant lots it controls, plus those of owners who can't be found. The nonprofit South Side-based contractor City Source Associates works with the Department of Public Works to mow lots, but it's been an uphill battle.

"We can plant some grass," said Mr. Quigley. The city can also mow a few times each summer. "What we're looking for is stewards in the neighborhoods."