By Sarina Trangle
Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled what he described as a major overhaul of the city’s Superstorm Sandy recovery efforts in Staten Island last week, shifting his administration’s strategy toe a more local approach.
The mayor pledged to hasten the pace of rebuilding homes and reimbursing those who paid out of pocket for such work. De Blasio said the city aimed to break ground on construction work at 500 homes and mail 500 reimbursement checks by the end of the summer.
He also said the city would appoint borough leaders to coordinate assistance efforts with multiple government agencies, assign city Department of Buildings inspectors to work exclusively on rebuilding efforts in hard-hit areas and establish a program to hire those affected by Sandy for related construction jobs in their communities.
“We know we have to do things differently, better, faster,” de Blasio said. “It’s also crucially important to get closer to the communities in need and the people we’re serving.”
Many of those flanking de Blasio during his announcement praised his plans., but Staten Island Borough President James Oddo’s support was tempered. He said those inundated by Sandy had got little more than lip service from the government after 18 months and it took an administration change for the city to agree to Staten Island’s original request for the appointment of a rebuilding leader in each borough.
“We need that sole-minded, laser-like focus that we’ve seen this mayor demonstrate on some of the victories he’s had in the first three months on this issue,” Oddo said.
De Blasio emphasized that Build It Back, an initiative to assist homeowners, landlords and renters affected by the storm, had not begun construction on any homes before he took office Jan 1.
Since then, his administration put out a report showing construction on nine homes had begun and 30 reimbursement checks had been sent to those who financed their reconstruction work.
De Blasio did not mention those statistics, but heralded the fact that the city had offered nearly 4,000 homeowners repair work offers, an eight-fold increase from the number of offers issued before he took office. The mayor said nearly 1,000 of these offers had been accepted. After such an acceptance, the mayor said design work and construction begins “immediately.”
He did not offer a time line as to when the roughly 26,000 applications for the program would be processed and completed or how much the city anticipates spending on them. Roughly 45 percent of applicants reside in Queen.
City Comptroller Scott Stringer announced he had formed a Sandy oversight unit to audit the Build It Back program and other recovery work last week.
De Blasio’s plans to more directly coordinate rebuilding efforts with community groups was welcomed by the Rev. Arthur Davenport, of First Church of God in Far Rockaway.
“We applaud de Blasio and his administration for offering new hope and opportunity to vulnerable New Yorkers through their commitment to make New York a national model for the creation of local living wage jobs and career paths to our people to rebuild our own city,” he said.
Reach reporter Sarina Trangle at 718-260-4546 or by e-mail at strangle@cnglocal.com.
