SLIME DOES PAY

City to give tainted landlords $173M, not $40M

The city is set to buy 17 properties from the notorious Podolsky brothers so it can convert homeless apartments into affordable housing — but the price tag, initially thought to be between $40 million and $60 million has risen to a whopping $173 million, a city official confirmed Thursday.

The deal, which multiple government sources predict will be finalized within days, involves the city financing the purchase of buildings in Brooklyn and the Bronx.

Non-profit groups would then take over the day-to-day management of the properties.

The units — many of which are now being used as “cluster site” homeless shelters — would be converted to citysubsidized apartments.

Mayor de Blasio announced in January the deal would be put on hold after the Daily News revealed the Podolsky brothers — who pleaded guilty to more than a dozen offenses involving other properties in 1986 — were the landlords selling the property.

That pause apparently has been lifted — and so has the expected price of the properties.

Early in the city’s consideration of the deal, it estimated the buildings’ market value to be between $40 million and $60 million, according to a knowledgeable source.

But a city official said on Thursday that the Law Department retained a thirdparty appraiser, Metropolitan Valuation Services, to figure out the properties’ value.

That appraisal put their worth at $143 million.

The Podolsky brothers apparently got the city to raise the price. They valued the 17 properties they wish to sell at around $200 million — and sought that price from the city.

But the brothers have refused to rectify outstanding alleged building violations, pushing the properties’ price down to the $173 million figure, said the knowledgeable source.

Another factor is that the city leveled the threat of taking the properties through eminent domain, which would mean a court battle. That might have increased the city’s costs beyond $173 million.

A Podolsky spokesman said the brothers are “delighted” to have arrived at a “fair resolution.”

Now City Hall officials are sweating bullets trying to figure out a way to justify the properties’ $173 million price to the public.

“They’ve very conscious of that,” the source said.

According to the source, the city’s PR team plans to use the luxury apartment on Central Park South recently purchased for $238 million as an illustration of how a property’s appraised value can differ substantially from what it would fetch on the open market.