Comptroller Scott Stringer slapped the de Blasio administration with a subpoena Friday for value determinations of a controversial $173 million real estate deal to create extra low-priced residences. The subpoena changed into issued an afternoon after the town closed a deal with builders Stuart and Jay Podolsky to pay $30 million above the appraised fee for 17 homes within the Bronx and Brooklyn. The Podolsky brothers have been represented with legal professional Frank Carone, a politically related attorney for the Brooklyn Democratic Party, who has contributed to the mayor’s political action committee.
“I have repeatedly expressed concern concerning the $173 million rate tag that, thus far, has lacked any hint of transparency,” Stringer said. “My office has made a couple of requests to look at the value determinations and files that guide this apparently inflated fee, and the reasons provided via the City to this point have raised greater questions than answers. …The time for excuses is over, and I am consequently issuing a subpoena for any appraisals and another record helping this deal.”
Stringer additionally said within the statement that the “distinction in fee among the unique estimates and the very last settled deal might have been used to create even extra cheap housing devices.” The Podolsky brothers were indicted via the Manhattan district legal professional’s office in the Nineteen Eighties for dozens of felonies, along with pushing tenants out of Upper West Side buildings and then filling them with hookers and drug dealers.
They pleaded guilty but prevented prison in exchange for network provider through agreeing to provide control of the 3 homes to homeless offerings nonprofit. Earlier on WNYC radio, Mayor Bill de Blasio defended the deal, claiming the price was “decided using the Law Department” and other organizations and could help speed up the system of creating 2,000 gadgets of low-cost housing with the aid of warding off the eminent domain.
“We believed the eminent area was probably going to take some other 3 years because of the manner the courtroom technique works, … and this was going to be the charge we ended up paying,” the mayor stated. “And instead of wait 3 years, and feature these parents now not have permanent low priced housing, we decided to move ahead.” City Hall spokeswoman Jaclyn Rothenberg said the mayor’s office informed Stringer it become “glad to provide” the appraisal documentation earlier than the comptroller issued the subpoena. “While Comptroller Stringer makes a specialty of cheap political stunts, the mayor’s imparting 2,000 people with progressed, everlasting, low-priced housing with this agreement,” she stated.
