AFTER ALL, HE DIDN'T GET A SWEETHEART DEAL ON THE MORGAGE SO HE NEEDED A BREAK:

White House official's home repairs questioned (KAREN MATTHEWS, 3/10/09, AP)

The new White House director of urban affairs hired an architect for his own home at the same time that a project the architect was working on was up for approval by his office.

Former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, tapped by President Obama last month to head the Office on Urban Policy, hired architect Hugo Subotovsky in 2006 to design a renovation for his two-family house.

Subotovsky was part of a team seeking approval of a development called Boricua Village that included a 14-story college building and 679 units of housing. Carrion recommended approval of the project in 2007, and it then went to the city Planning Commission.

Carrion, 47, oversaw rapid development in the Bronx including 40,000 new units of housing and 50 new schools. Real estate developers were among his biggest campaign donors, and campaign finance records show that Subotovsky and the team behind Boricua Village gave Carrion tens of thousands of dollars.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 10, 2009 3:45 PM