Pittsburgh Council has before it two ideas for offering tax breaks to draw new residents to targeted city neighborhoods. One is a thoroughly researched and analyzed 64-page proposal from Councilman Bill Peduto. The other is a thin and speculative concept from Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

The fact that the purveyors of the proposals are the two Democratic candidates for mayor is not coincidental. But maybe good politics, in the end, will make for good competition.

Regardless of how the plans play out on the political landscape, council needs to assess them apart from the heat of the mayor's race. It's time that the city stepped up its homesteading effort on behalf of neighborhoods that have either lost population or would gain demonstrated benefits from an infusion of new residents. The fact that council can draw on elements from two proposals will enable it, after thorough analysis, to take the best from both.

Both plans would waive city real estate taxes for 10 years on eligible properties for developers and buyers. Councilman Peduto's plan, which grew out of a year's effort from a knowledgeable 18-member task force, is based Downtown and extends to five adjacent neighborhoods. Mayor Ravenstahl says the city should offer incentives for Downtown and 20 other neighborhoods, though his points come with no apparent research or study other than a needs-based index that was used in helping to choose his target communities.

Mr. Peduto's plan, which also offers five years of tax abatement for the development of industrial and commercial buildings, would seek state action to allow tax credits for spending on historic preservation, environmentally friendly buildings and public art.

What would give any abatement plan real muscle is compounding the city's tax forgiveness with similar breaks from the Pittsburgh school district and Allegheny County -- steps that those two jurisdictions would have to take independently. As every homeowner knows, the largest property tax by far is paid to one's school district, and if the city schools and the county were willing -- and able -- to forgo that, they could truly make for an attractive program to rebuild hard-to-populate city neighborhoods.

In the end it will come down to choices. How much tax forgiveness can local governments afford? What are the estimates on the revenue and vitality to be gained from new residents in these neighborhoods?

Ideally, the Post-Gazette would prefer a residential stimulus plan that, besides Downtown, includes neighborhoods like Homewood, Hazelwood, West End and Arlington (as pushed by Mayor Ravenstahl). But it must be sustainable from both a revenue and community impact point of view. Councilman Peduto's proposal has supporting numbers, but the mayor's plan does not.

The need to preserve historic structures and create new, environmentally sound ones is also in the public interest (as Councilman Peduto argues). We question, however, whether further stimulus, through tax breaks, is needed for hot locales like the South Side and the North Shore.

We also believe the city cannot underestimate the lure to the average home buyer of a decade of tax forgiveness worth thousands of dollars a year. Take that, suburbs is what Pittsburgh would be exclaiming to the neighboring communities that typically lure city dwellers away. That bang for the buck would be a boost to buyers of houses as much as buyers of condos.

But the trade-off in tax abatements, as everyone knows, comes in the revenue needed to run the city. That's why City Council must make hard study of and careful choices in the structure and sweep of this important homesteading program.

There are attractive elements in both plans, but only Councilman Peduto's, to date, has the necessary supporting analysis. The administration needs to deliver similar justification for the mayor's ideas if council is to give the same weight to his points in this key public initiative.