This is still going on?!!
Seven years after Superstorm Sandy, the de Blasio administration continues to botch recovery efforts for families of storm-damaged homes who are still dealing with mold, faulty piping and other construction problems because the city won’t timely pay contractors for the repair work, Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis charged Friday.
Malliotakis was joined at a Staten Island press conference by nine families and two contractors fuming over the performance of the city “Build It Back” storm-recovery program.
The pol, who is assisting a total of 21 borough property owners, recalled how de Blasio came to Staten Island in 2015 and promised residents that construction of their damaged homes would be completed by 2016.
“Yet here we are after that, and we still have families that are dealing with Build It Back issues, and we have a few that aren’t even back in their homes yet,” recalled Malliotakis (R-Staten Island)
“To me, that is unconscionable. It is completely unacceptable.”
Among the griping property owners was Diane Doyle, who moved back into her South Beach house in April 2018 after repairs were finally made through contractors tapped through Build It Back.
Doyle said the work was quite shoddy, adding the house she returned to years later was poorly insulated and had faulty ventilation systems – including in the bathroom and stove areas.
She also said her sprinkler system froze in February, flooding the entire home and causing her to move out again for another five months until problems were rectified.
[“The city] just left it dangling,” Doyle said. “We had the contractor at our own expense fix everything that [Build It Back] didn’t fix, and we’ve been fighting back and forth with them ever since to take responsibility and they say it’s not their problem.”
Another borough homeowner, Carrol Hefty, said faulty work has left her home regularly without heat and or air conditioning. She also said cold water shoots out of her hot water faucet.
Gary Allen Casazza, a Brooklyn-based contractor who attended the press conference, said his business is suffering greatly because the city still owes him more than million dollars for repair work he’s done on homes through Build It Back.
“I’m a little contractor,” he said. “I don’t have that kind of money. I’ve taken mortgages on my house; my partners have not gotten paid.
“I have subcontractors that have not gotten paid and they did the work. Part of the reason why this program isn’t moving forward is because we cannot get someone from this city to sit down and speak to us to solve the problems.”
Malliokatis has been a longtime critic of the Build It Back program – which de Blasio inherited in 2014 from former Mayor Mike Bloomberg – including slamming de Blasio’s performance overseeing it during the 2017 mayoral race.
But the mayor’s office defended Built It Back, boasting it’s helped rebuild over 1,300 home since Sandy hit.
And spokeswoman Jane Meyer said it is the contractors — not the city — that are responsible for homeowners’ headaches.
She said the city “works closely with each contractor to expedite payments, finalize change order reviews, and evaluate all outstanding contractor issues before making final payments.”
She added, “it is unacceptable that some contractors are trying to punish homeowners by placing liens on their property in an attempt to force the city to do less through audits. This is unfair to homeowners and does nothing [to] resolve the situation.”