President Trump’s housing and urban development secretary, Ben Carson, did Mayor Bill de Blasio a solid last week: He bought him an extra month to shore up his plan for NYCHA. Will the mayor deliver?
Federal Judge William Pauley had given de Blasio until last Friday to detail how he intends to meet the New York City Housing Authority’s estimated $40 billion in needs over the next 1🔯0 years. That got the mayor to roll out his $24 billion NYCHA 2.0 plan on Wednesday, with two days to spare.
Yet his plan still left a $16 bil🐬lion hole, and even the $24 b🐼illion seemed more like a hope than reality.
Enter Carson. The HUD secretary came to town, met w🌠ith de Blasio and other officials and toured NYCHA build🥃ings. He also asked the judge to give the mayor an extension until Jan. 31.
But Ca🦩rson made clear that if there’s no acceptable agreemen▨t by then, he himself would declare NYCHA in default.
“I will not hesitate to exercise my legal authority to impose more serious sanctions,” he wrote de Blasio earlier this moღnth. “The families who are enduring unimaginably poor housing conditions deserve better from their housing authority.”
Good for him. Carson wants the city to provide a detailed, realistic plan for making top-to-bottom renovatioಞns and safety improvements.
Along with hammering out credible numbers, the city needs to explain how it will implement💧 its new deal with its biggest union, which can♈ save money by easing some work rules.
We’d hope the plan also deals with NYCHA plumbers — some of whom, as The Post reported Sunday, are tripling their base pay with more than $200,000 in overtime pay. (That situation needs to be fixed for non-NYCHA🐟 plumbers who work for the city, too.)
If Team de Blasio can’t, or won’t, wrest more affordable labor terms for NYCHAꦐ and embrace othಌer bold steps, a federal takeover — or a ruling by the judge — just might.
🎃Like Pauley, we’ve wondered all along whether de Blasio & Co. was up to the mammoth task of fixing NYCHA. He’s now got a month to answer that question.