"Build It Back is pushing us out of the Choose Your Own Contractor pathway (a pathway they ended because most Sandy survivors in it had too many problems) and into using one of another two contractors (who have many complaints about them from other residents trying to work with them, like poor workmanship, long delays, no responses to homeowner calls/concerns), take a buyout, or leave the Build It Back program entirely without any benefit.
In a letter dated June 21st, 2017, my husband Lenny De Virgilio, wrote the Mayor asking for help to get us home and to be sure we're still in Build It Back. In response, on August 29th, 2017, Housing (Recovery) emailed me and sent certified copies of a letter issuing us a Final Deadline of September 29th, 2017, along with a copy of my husband's letter that they saved and titled "App_004702_Virgilio Leonard_Mayoral Complaint_08162017." Despite our last name being misspelled (Virgilio when it should be De Virgilio), this is sending what can only be interpreted as a clear message of retribution for my husband asking the mayor to please help us and plead the case of the Certified Minority Owned Business contractor who stuck with us for more than 4 years.
At this point, we are confident that our DOB plan filing yesterday should be approved (there were about 7 outstanding issues that were addressed) and we'll then subsequently be able to get permits, we then need to have the final plans analyzed for an Energy Star Rating (we already paid for someone who's waiting to do that) and our new contractor needs to give his 'scope of work' to HPD, (the Build It Back project manager), and he's done everything else they asked for despite only being on-board this project since September 29th. We got a small extension of the first final deadline to last Friday, October 20th, 2017, as long as we completed all of our pre-construction due diligence, which we did not finish, but we've come a long way and we're right there!
We originally had DOB approved plans last August 2016 and in March of 2017 as we were finalizing pre-construction tasks including permitting, we found out that because the house directly next door to our property does not have a bulkhead, that we are part of the wetlands, even though we have a full bulkhead, this delayed us 6 months because we had to get DEC permits, that were issued on September 21st, 2017, only days before the September 29th deadline. Our engineer has been moving furiously to update our plans according to the inevitable changes needed due to fire code compliance, after DEC required our house be put back in its original footprint. On more than one occasion, DOB added new objections to our plan filings after we addressed the previous filing comments, which helped extend the length of time of the approval process -- I'm told that typically DOB issues all comments/objections upon initial review of the first plan submission and do not typically keep looking for new reasons to disapprove plans by repeatedly adding new objections without there being a material design change. We saw up to 20 new objections at one point. In addition, we were told that senior people in Build It Back were also looking at our plans because a lot of people are interested in this project. That said, we missed every milestone deadline they gave us, but Rudy Giuliani time and again when I saw him at Civic meetings, via email or on the phone said we were fine, that Amy and everyone know you're making progress. In addition, there was little to no support for us to get pre-construction due diligence work done until some minimal help at the very end (it would seem that the design of the CYOC pathway was such that participants were set up to fail and force them into the pathway of using contractors who build based on prototypes or pre-fabs (and they have lots of delays), acquisition or to leave the program in frustration -- the latter seems to be one of the most common results as evidenced by the program enrollment decline from about 22,000 to just over 8,000).
The reason for this push for us to end our involvement in the CYOC program they say is because they don't feel we will get construction started in a timely manner, but if another contractor takes over, according to HPD, they will take about 3 months to get their pre-construction due diligence work completed, yet we are right at the finish line and if we were given the 3 months a brand new contractor is said to need, we would be done far ahead of that. And if we leave the CYOC pathway, we will not be reimbursed for all of our out-of-pocket costs that came from our savings, a small inheritance that was intended to go to my 401k, pension and personal loans that all total more than $150k (the mortgage company has the last of our settlement that we hope has not been credited to our mortgage principal as they threatened to do), and we don't have the money to take the project on without possibly getting our reduced and paid off SBA loan reinstated in full. Taking a buyout will not give us enough money to buy anything else in NYC without a huge mortgage if we qualify. And in the event of a buyout, it is more than likely the city would sell the parcel to someone else to redevelop it, at our expense.
On Wednesday, October 25th, I sent a pointed response to an email from HPD that said we were not given an extension of time, even though I saw Amy Peterson (the head of Build It Back) in front of the house we are currently renting, 3 doors down from our houseless property, where I made a personal appeal to her, telling her that our project is now moving past many of the obstacles that had been stopping us before (we spoke about some of the details). She said great, just have the contractor stay in close contact with HPD and we'll go from there. I stopped my car as I was driving off our block to be sure Amy was OK with what we were doing and she asked if I felt good about things, and I said yes. She asked if the new contractor felt good about things and I said, yes, very good. In a conversation with Valerie Leone of HPD on the following Tuesday, October 24th, when she called me to find out what of the other options/pathways we were opting for, I told her that I spoke with Amy and we can keep in the CYOC pathway. The kicker is, that Amy gave me a great big hug with a smile telling me she was so glad that we're on our way to getting home. So to then get Valerie's email saying we cannot keep moving forward with what we had been doing was a shock. I responded by sending a lengthy email cataloging all of the contradictions in statements that had been made to me and about our engineer, in staying on the CYOC pathway, DOB delays and exactly whose decision it was to give us an extension of time or not -- Amy and Rudy Giuliani kept telling me that it was up to HPD. Valerie Leone of HPD said that it's Amy's decision. I also let them know that the final deadline communication came with that copy of my husband's letter that they called a "complaint" as is indicated in the title -- "App_004702_Virgilio Leonard_Mayoral Complaint_
I guess my husband writing to the mayor as our last hope was also too confrontational for Amy Peterson to continue working with us to get us home, 5 years after Sandy."
Sophia Vailakis-DeVirgilio
West 12th Road, Broad Channel
Related Links
Related Links
See at about 19:24 where Amy Peterson takes off her microphone
Look at 48:40 for my remarks:
Call the mayor again....
ReplyDeleteYou were literally harassed by the very people who should have been helping you! How can they live with themselves? Corruption is rampant in every facet of our government and our government programs. I picture a room full of monsters going over people's paperwork all laughing and conjuring up ways to inflict pain and suffering on poor people who just want to get home again. I'm so sorry you are going through all of this.
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