More than 1,000 abandoned, decaying houses blight Richmond neighborhoods.

And with the owners no longer paying property taxes, such properties add nothing to city revenue.

Instead, such properties pile up delinquent taxes on the city’s books.

Targeting more than $70 million in unpaid taxes, City Hall is preparing to step up efforts to push more of these properties back on the tax rolls by going to court to clear their titles and then selling them for renovation and marketing to new homeowners.

The 2016 budget that will go into effect July 1 provides $1.5 million to cover the cost of the stepped up effort, with an additional $1.5 million to be invested the following year.

This would represent one of the biggest investments by the city to reduce tax delinquent properties.

The goal, according to Lee Downey, interim deputy chief administrative officer for economic and community development, is to go from selling 40 to 50 vacant, tax delinquent houses a year to selling 200 such houses a year.

He said the extra money that Mayor Dwight C. Jones proposed and City Council approved would allow the City Attorney’s Office to get more properties through the court process. That would allow the city to seek willing buyers to pay off delinquent taxes, fix up the homes and resell them.

He said the houses average about $8,000 in delinquent taxes per property.

Mr. Downey said some of the money the city would gain from the sales would go to support the program.

The council also has directed that any money the city gains over the program’s cost is to be put into “affordable housing initiatives in the city,” such as the planned redevelopment of the city’s public housing communities.