Photo Courtesy of Demetrius Freeman/Mayoral Photography Office
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro (from l.), Mayor Bill de Blasio, and Build it Back Director Amy Peterson last October toured a home rebuilt by BIB in Breezy Point.
By Michael V. Cusenza
The City’s Build it Back program is once again under a microscope after a recent report indicated that the Housing Recovery Operations initiative is wildly over budget, with Jane and John Q. Public set to foot part of the ballooning bill.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “significant cost overruns in Build it Back appear to be leaving city taxpayers on the hook for some of the storm-protection initiatives. The program is about $500 million over budget.”
Asked for clarification, a City Hall spokesperson said, “Our goal is to invest and create resilient neighborhoods, and we’ve identified additional needs to accomplish this goal. The money allocated will help us move homeowners into more resilient housing without sacrificing any of our current resiliency or non-resiliency projects.”
At least one long-time critic of Build it Back has fumed that the program, initially organized under the Bloomberg administration and funded through federal Housing and Urban Development dollars to help Superstorm Sandy victims get back on their feet, has wrought even more damage than Mother Nature, and that the actions of its coordinators now border on the criminal.
“I write today to respectfully request that your office commence an investigation into the misuse of federal funds awarded to the City of New York to rebuild homes in communities still recovering from Hurricane Sandy,” City Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park) said in a missive to Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. “As an elected official who represents several neighborhoods severely impacted by the storm, I am absolutely appalled by these figures given the small number of homes Build it Back elevated or repaired to date. I believe the gross mismanagement of these funds by the Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery warrants an immediate investigation.”
This summer, Ulrich, who has hinted at a possible campaign to unseat Mayor Bill de Blasio next fall, blasted Hizzoner’s “poor handling” of BIB, and demanded that program Director Amy Peterson “resign today and allow new leadership to run the program more effectively. If she won’t resign, Mayor de Blasio should fire her.”
Reached for comment on the councilman’s letter to Bharara, the City Hall spokesperson said, “We are working hard to rebuild long-standing communities and create resilient neighborhoods. New Yorkers need the City’s leaders to work together, not cheap political stunts like this that hurt communities.”
Ulrich wasn’t the only one upset at news of Build it Back’s swollen budget.
Stacey Pheffer Amato, Democratic candidate for Assembly District 23, which was hit especially hard by Sandy four years ago, said the program’s shortfalls “confirm what our families have known for some time: that the program is a bloated, bureaucratic mess. It’s bad enough that City Hall is making New Yorkers foot the bill for cost overruns now when it had no problem paying out consultants at the start of the program. However, the greatest insult of all is that nearly four years after Sandy devastated our communities, homeowners are still waiting to be made whole. There must be accountability, and I join families across Southern Queens and Rockaway in demanding a full review of how Build it Back has been spending our money.”
Pheffer Amato’s GOP opponent, Alan Zwirn, said, “For me, dealing with ‘Build It Back’ reaffirmed President Ronald Reagan’s definition of the 9 scariest words in the English language: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help!”
