The city of Pittsburgh is broadening efforts to sell vacant lots as side yards, expanding a program that has tripled in volume in the past year, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has announced.

Since 1995, the city has sought to sell the empty lots it owns. It will now help transfer abandoned, privately owned lots to neighboring homeowners for around $200.

Typically, the city will pay a contractor to demolish an abandoned house, put down soil and grass, offer the parcel to the neighbors, and -- if they're interested -- try to transfer ownership through the tax sale process.

That puts the parcel back on the tax rolls, said Mr. Ravenstahl, but that's not the main point.

"It's not a revenue-driven program. It's a neighborhood-driven program," he said. "Some might say, 'Well, what's one lot going to do for the community?' Well, one lot's a start and one becomes two, and two become four."

The Ravenstahl administration said that in an average year, 35 such sales were completed.

Three changes have allowed the city to increase the volume to the point that there are now around 115 side yard sales in the works. The first was the city's purchase last year of old tax debts sold by former Mayor Tom Murphy's administration to Capital Asset Research Corp. The debts had slowed sales when Capital Asset insisted on having them paid off.

The second was a push to identify and market potential side yards to neighbors, in which the city wrote to some 1,200 owners inviting them to buy the vacant lots next door.

Third, a doubling of the demolition budget, enabling the removal of 600 condemned homes this year, is creating more eligible lots.

Adding the abandoned, privately owned lots to the program should result in more of the sites becoming side yards, the mayor said. The Public Works Department's Green Team, created last month to plant grass on demolition sites, can call in the Penn State Agricultural Extension to provide a would-be side yard owner with gardening tips.

Finance Department staff will help neighbors through the process, which takes a while due to state laws requiring efforts to find tax-delinquent owners before selling off their properties.

Annette Johnson, a Homewood retiree, said it took her around two years to buy the lot next to her Idlewild Street home. The city recently completed the transfer.

"I don't think it was hard," she said. The purchase "gave us more space. ... My husband wants to do a garden with the grandson."