A\u00a0Bronx apartment building Mayor Mamdani showcased to highlight the talents of his new housing commissioner, Dina Levy,\u00a0has racked up nearly 200 unresolved violations, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n
The 102-unit building at 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in Morris Heights as of Saturday had a staggering 194 open housing-code violations dating back to 2016 \u2014 including 88 \u201cClass C\u201d violations considered \u201cimmediately hazardous.\u201d <\/p>\n
They included rat and roach infestation; broken doors and refrigerators; and mold, records show. <\/a><\/p>\n Mamdani visited the affordable-housing complex best known for being the birthplace of hip-hop <\/a>on Jan. 4 to introduce Levy, 54, a longtime tenants\u2019 rights advocate and former state housing honcho<\/a>, as his new Housing Preservation and Development commissioner.<\/p>\n He gushed how Levy \u2014 who grew up the silver-spooned daughter of two high-powered DC lawyers \u2013 has non-profit experience in building and overseeing affordable housing, a perfect fit for his leftist housing agenda that seeks to replace private landlords wherever possible.<\/p>\n A\u00a0Bronx apartment building NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani showcased to highlight the talents of his new housing commissioner, Dina Levy has racked up 188 safety-code violations that remain unresolved. Tomas E. Gaston for NY Post<\/p>\n Levy, who will make $277,605 a year as HPD commissioner, helped facilitate a 2011 deal for nonprofit Workforce Housing Advisors to buy and rehab the Sedgwick Avenue complex from private landlords.<\/p>\n Levy did this with help from a $5.6 million HPD loan she and her own nonprofit, the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, brokered to stabilize the building\u2019s finances and maintain its \u201caffordable\u201d rental status, recalled Mamdani.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cDina will no longer be petitioning HPD from the outside,\u201d the mayor touted. \u201cShe will now be leading it from the inside, delivering the kind of change that can transform lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Dilapidated stove and busted radiator inside Mordistine Alexander\u2019s apartment at 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in The Bronx. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n However, the 59-year-old building isn\u2019t the success story Mamdani and Levy claim it to be, The Post found.<\/p>\n It has more than double the dangerous \u201cClass C\u201d violations racked up at 85 Clarkson Ave., a dilapidated, privately owned 71-unit complex in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, Mamdani showcased three days earlier as a poster child for everything he believes is wrong with the city\u2019s publicly-subsidized housing stock.<\/p>\n Rickety air-condition unit window at 1520 Sedgwick Ave. with blue tape and other insulation around it. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n Tenants told The Post conditions were better under the old, private landlord.<\/p>\n \u201cI have been here over 20 years, and I preferred it when it was under private management because they used to screen people in and out of the building,\u201d said Mordistine Alexander, among the dozens of tenants at 1520 Sedgwick whose homes have open HPD violations.<\/p>\n Alexander, 49, who has rented her three-bedroom apartment since 1999, said the unit routinely lacks heat and hot water, its bathroom and kitchen facades are crumbling and windows need to be replaced<\/p>\n She said she\u2019s been without a kitchen light for months \u2014 despite asking for fluorescent light bulbs to be replaced since October.<\/p>\n Portions of the building\u2019s brick facade at 520 Sedgwick Ave. include makeshift repair work using plastic covering and wooden planks. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n And she said she had to take care of fixing a major rodent problem in the unit herself because she \u201ccouldn\u2019t wait any longer\u201d for Workforce Housing Group<\/a> to respond.<\/p>\n \u201cSince [the nonprofit] took over, the building has deteriorated. They lack porters. No one is maintaining it, and the complaints fall on deaf ears \u2013 especially if you complain a lot,\u201d said Alexander, adding she wishes Levy never won her fight to turn the building over to the nonprofit.<\/p>\n Yet Mamdani wants more complexes like the Sedgewick Avenue building. He supports Stalinesque legislation\u00a0designed to control how private property is sold\u00a0<\/a>so that more nonprofits can oversee rent-stabilized apartments.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to laugh at the hypocrisy,\u201d said Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens). \u201cThese nonprofits are proving themselves to be little more than taxpayer-funded slumlords, and this blatant double-standard is all part of the administration\u2019s planned attack on private ownership in New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Cea Weaver, the much-maligned lefty boss of Mamdani\u2019s newly created Mayor\u2019s Office to Protect Tenants, HPD Commissioner Levy grew up in privilege.<\/p>\n She is the twin daughter of lawyer Ed Levy and his late civil-rights attorney wife Mary, who owned multiple properties, including a townhouse in historic Georgetown they sold in 2023 that is currently worth $1.4 million. She has said she is a native of affluent Maplewood, NJ.<\/a><\/p>\n Damaged front door at Mordistine Alexander\u2019s apartment. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n Levy, a Delaware University graduate, has been a rebel-rousing, radical tenant advocate for decades, even spending time in the slammer as a young organizer.<\/p>\n