Pittsburgh maps show condemned properties outpace demolitions

Aerial view of a residential neighborhood with large red X marks drawn over many houses.

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Pittsburgh has nearly 2,000 condemned properties — mostly abandoned, decaying homes that are the legacy of decades of population decline. The city’s demolition and land recycling programs are struggling to keep up with the volume of need.

The city has conducted between 27 and 111 demolitions per year since 2020, but significantly more buildings are in a long line for the wrecker. Demolition is limited by cost: Since 2020, razing a building costs more than $50,000 on average, and the city finds itself in a fragile financial position overall.

Two thirds of the condemned properties have an inspection score that indicates they are structurally compromised and dangerous.

“We want to do these and do them fast,” newly minted Mayor Corey O’Connor said at a Jan. 16 press conference in Knoxville, a neighborhood home to dozens of condemned structures. “We’re planning to invest more of our capital in it, but then also looking for partners.”

Maps showing condemned structures and those that have been demolished since 2020 illustrate the problem facing the city. It has targeted demolitions in neighborhoods that need them most, and ramped up operations with the help of pandemic relief funds, but the volume of unstable buildings is overwhelming.

Inspectors give each condemned property a score on a scale of one to four, with one indicating the structure poses no danger and two through four indicating increasing levels of danger.

“I’ve really come to the conclusion that these condemned properties aren’t just about the buildings themselves that failed or that are crumbling, it’s more about the systems that have failed,” said Chris Rosselot, policy director for the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group. “Housing, public health, governance, equity, all those issues.”

The city has funded the demolition of at least 411 structures since the start of 2020, according to published permitting data. (A demolition permit can represent multiple, adjacent buildings.)

The 411 demolitions since 2020 cost the city about $22 million, according to cost estimates attached to permitting data. That’s about $53,400 per demolition, or a median of about $36,000.

This pace of demolition was boosted by about $7 million in extra funding from the federal pandemic relief package passed in 2021, with the number of demolitions far higher in 2022 and 2023 than the other years, when no relief funds were allocated to the program.

The neighborhoods that have seen the most demolitions are largely the same as those with the most remaining condemned buildings. Homewood, the Hill District, parts of the North Side and South Pittsburgh contained most of them.

The city keeps a list of properties under consideration for demolition, ordered by how much danger the structures pose to the community, officials told Public Source in December. The cost of razing the buildings means the city cannot demolish as many structures as it would want to.

“The scale of the problem is probably too much for the city as a system to handle with the amount of resources at its disposal,” Rosselot said. He said the backlog stems from a lack of investment years ago to the point where the homes can no longer be saved through repairs.

The city’s 2026 capital budget includes about $25 million for demolition over the next five years, which could clear many of the currently condemned, dangerous structures, but the list is constantly changing. Rosselot said similar additions could occur going forward without more investment in repairing existing structures.

“I think that they are probably on that critical junction where if they don’t get repaired then they’re in serious jeopardy of adding to the thousands of properties that are in disrepair,” he said. “The eye test can bring you to the point where it’s quite visible that you have properties in neighborhoods that are on the cusp.”

There’s also a lengthy legal process that comes before demolition.

The city first condemns the structure, meaning nobody can inhabit it.
The city then takes the owner to court to compel them to make repairs or have the building demolished at their own expense.
If the owner fails to do so, the city can pay for demolition and put a lien on the property for the cost.

That’s what’s happening to Nicole Green, a Knoxville homeowner who Public Source chronicled in a December story. It took several years after her row home’s roof and floors collapsed for the city to condemn the building and begin considering it for city-funded demolition.

She’s awaiting a decision from the city to demolish the structure, which would add to a lengthy list of liens against her former home, while the Pittsburgh Land Bank considers stepping in to help.

Charlie Wolfson is the local government reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Ethan Beck.

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