The New York City Housing Authority’s interim chairman is mounting an aggressive campaign to urge the federal judge overseeing the agency to trim the powers of NYCHA’s new federal monitor.
“My view of accountability is hold me accountable for outcomes, for commitments, for performance,” chairman Stanley Brezenoff told The Post Editorial Board on Wednesday. “If you want to fix NYCHA, that’s how it has to be fixed.”
“The big law firms are looking at this like as a continuous payday for years, maybe decades,” he claimed, adding that inevitable confusion and conflicts would only slow efforts to reform the agency.
“The question that has to be asked is what’s the value added by different approaches to monitorship and what the cost is.”
NYCHA is already under federal supervision as it struggles to deal with rampant mold outbreaks across many of its 325 housing projects, which Brezenoff said he supports.
“I’m all for an activist monitor, but I’m not for a separate management entity,” he said.
It’s at least the third time in recent days the NYCHA chair has publicly pressed federal Judge William Pauley.
Brezenoff also renewed his call for city leaders to consider any and all possible sources of revenue for NYCHA, which faces a $31.8 billion bill to bring its more than 170,000 apartments back to a good state of repair.
City Hall recently floated suggested developing a NYCHA-owned parking garage in Hell’s Kitchen to include market rate housing to raise cash for the struggling agency, but ran into intense criticism from Manhattan Borough President Gail Brewer.
Brezenoff acknowledged that infill plans, like the Hell’s Kitchen development, often run into fierce opposition.
“Every one of the projects is a story into itself, fraught with political considerations, some ideology,” he said. “I’ve parked all of my thoughts about elements of housing, I want every dollar that can be generated from the new construction infill to go to NYCHA.”
De Blasio brought the 80-year-old City Hall fixer out of retirement in June in a bid to right the ship at NYCHA, after much of its management was either sacked or resigned as a lead scandal mounted and the city’s housing projects suffered massive wintertime heating failures.
Brezenoff — who was tasked with repairing the city’s finances under Mayor Ed Koch, righting the Port Authority in the early 1990s and rescuing the city’s struggling public hospital system — told The Post that NYCHA is the toughest assignment he’s ever taken.
