NYCHA sits on Sandy $

MORE THAN five years after Hurricane Sandy badly damaged dozens of public housing developments, NYCHA has spent less than a quarter of the $3 billion it got to fix things up.

As of Wednesday, only one of 33 developments receiving repair funds from the Federal Emergency Management Administration is finished.

The storm struck in October 2012, flooding developments from Far Rockaway, Queens, to Coney Island, Brooklyn, and up and down the East River in Manhattan.

FEMA awarded the huge Sandy grant in March 2015, and NYCHA said the agency began turning over funds that fall. As of Wednesday, NYCHA has spent just $730 million of that, or 24%.

Joy Sinderbrand (photo), NYCHA vice president of recovery and resilience, said every repair “is being done in a thoughtful and deliberate manner” to ensure the buildings will be able to withstand another storm.

To date construction has begun at 27 developments, but completion dates stretch into 2021 — Mayor de Blasio’s final year at City Hall. And NYCHA is still picking contractors for three more, with three others still in the design phase.

NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye, who’s been under fire for a wave of heating outages and failures in lead paint inspections, portrayed the progress to date as a model to be emulated nationally. “Our Sandy recovery work shows that NYCHA can be a leader in rebuilding stronger, more resilient cities,” she said.

Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx), a frequent NYCHA critic, was less complimentary, “Only NYCHA would celebrate a quarter of the mission accomplished. It’s an example of defining success downward.”

Public Advocate Letitia James, who has called for Olatoye to resign for falsely claiming NYCHA was performing required lead paint inspections, also questioned the pace of the Sandy renewal.

“There are serious questions surrounding why so little of the dedicated FEMA funds have been used and where exactly those funds have gone,” James said.

At the Isaacs Houses on the Upper East Side, NYCHA has yet to pick a contractor to make the 636-unit development a few hundred feet from the East River stormresistant.

Tenant Association President Rose Bergin said the authority initially told Isaacs residents that $33 million from FEMA was set aside for their development, but last summer the amount was changed to $19 million.