Council Member Dinowitz on oversight of 2016 Tracy Towers capital loans and incomplete work

Can you provide a breakdown of the city capital versus the private capital for...

Tracy and all of the Michelamas, because we were told, I think, that the rent increase is due in large part to the debt service.

Otherwise, the building is underwater.

But that will be for later.

The second question is about other loans that have been taken out and HPD's oversight over those loans for capital improvements.

In 2016, there was a $40 million loan taken out for elevator repairs, elevator upgrades, boiler, roof.

And I mean, you were in Tracy Towers.

The elevators have clearly not been upgraded.

That was in 2016.

The roof is leaking, so it either wasn't done or wasn't done well.

So I'm asking about the oversight.

What oversight does HPD actually conduct to ensure that the money that is being borrowed that eventually has to be paid back by the tenants, that that work is actually being done?

And being done at a quality that they're not paying for just a few years later with leaky roofs and broken elevators.

Yeah, so monthly we monitor construction.

And in this case, it sounds like there was a...

HTC was the private first lender, and they would go out and do monthly inspections to ensure that the work was completed.

Once the construction monitor or excuse me, construction person from HTC and the architect sign off on the work that was completed, then the payment is made to the contractor.

So every month of those documents, every month somebody is going out to the building.

And then every month a requisition is submitted, and that's how the contractor gets paid for work that was completed.

Okay, are those documents public?

And please share those documents with us, where HDC or the contractor said this work was completed.

Completed.

Do you have those documents available to you?

I mean, I don't know if we have them available at the moment.

HDC is a different agency than HDC.

No, I understand, but you work in collaboration for the purpose of supporting people at our Mitchell Amas.

Yeah, and we could see what they have.

Okay.

We should see copies of those because the work wasn't done, right?

We have the documents that say the money was borrowed for...

maintenance, oh sorry, it's rehabilitation.

There was 1.6 for an elevator upgrade, 2.4 for the boiler roof, 600,000 for elevator modernization.

And if you're testifying that someone has to sign off on that every month and the work wasn't done, that means someone did something wrong.

I also want to note, since I am testifying, the scope of work is very specific, right?

So an elevator repair upgrade is not an elevator replacement.

That scope of work, those are two very different things.

Roof repairs is very different than roof replacement.

So those scope of work items are...

Completely different.

But I don't think any private homeowner would accept a job, would accept work where they completed repairs on the roof and that work and the roof the next year is leaking.

And we shouldn't accept that as a city either.

And that's why I'm interested in getting these documents.

I understand it's not your agency, but we are in the same city and the same city government.

And if we're all working together.