Possible conflict of interest surfaces for President Obama’s new urban czar Adolfo Carrion
President Obama’s new urban czar renovated his Bronx home with help from the architect on a major development that needed his approval, a Daily News investigation has found.Adolfo Carrin, who last week left his job as Bronx borough president to be director of the White House Office on Urban Policy, hired the architect to design a renovation of his Victorian two-family on City Island.Weeks after the architect’s work on Carrin’s house was complete, Carrin approved the architect’s project.Carrin would not say how much he paid the architect, if anything. He also refused to provide copies of checks for the work.”I hired an architect on an arm’s-length commercial basis to draw up plans for a renovation, as required by city law,” he said. “That was completely unrelated to my professional activities and entirely proper.”The White House declined to comment.The possible conflict of interest surfaced Nov. 13, 2006, when, records show, Hugo Subotovsky was listed as architect of record overseeing the addition of a porch and installation of a second-floor balcony. Total job cost was estimated at $32,000.at the time, records show, Carrin had at least $15,000 in credit card debt, was paying off two mortgages worth more than $500,000 and had $5,000 in revolving credit from Chase bank.in the next few months, architect Subotovsky signed off on several documents necessary to complete the Carrin renovation. All were filed with the city Buildings Department, records show.at the time, Subotovsky was part of a team seeking Carrin’s approval of one of the biggest taxpayer-subsidized developments in the Bronx, Boricua village.as project architect, Subotovsky was involved in the design of a 14-story college building and 679 units of housing in Melrose.The project involved zoning changes, so it needed approval from Carrin and the City Planning Commission.Subotovsky, several top Boricua College officials and executives with the project’s developer, Atlantic Development Group, gave a combined $74,000 to Carrin’s campaign.[…]