Metro

De Blasio’s NYU appointments may ‘influence’ expansion approval

An ivory tower has been erected at City Hall — with Mayor de Blasio appointing so many NYU-connected officials to top-tier jobs that advocates fear the university’s controversial development projects will be rubber-stamped.

Last week, de Blasio named professor Vicki Been head of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the agency charged with housing the city’s neediest residents. Been and her hubby, Richard Revesz, who was dean of NYU’s law school for 11 years, owe the university $6.4 million for sweetheart mortgages on their West Village town house and Connecticut vacation home.

De Blasio’s first deputy mayor is former NYU Langone Medical Center honcho Anthony Shorris, who made $1 million as both a vice dean and hospital chief of staff.

The mayor also tapped former Trinity Real Estate President Carl Weisbrod as chair of the City Planning Commission. Weisbrod, who served in the Lindsay, Koch and Dinkins administrations, was an academic chair at the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate.

The city’s new corporation counsel, ex-US Attorney Zachary Carter, is an NYU Law trustee.

“It looks like the fix is in,” said a community activist who refused to be identified for fear of retaliation by NYU. “People are afraid [the university] will have undo influence.”

The activist told The Post neighborhood groups are planning to launch a lobbying effort to get de Blasio — himself a 1984 NYU grad — to stop his support of the university’s expansion into the Village. The NYU 2031 expansion plan, headed by university President John Sexton, calls for adding 1.9 million square feet across four new buildings in Greenwich Village.

In January, a state judge ruled NYU’s $6 billion plan must get approval from the state Legislature because it involves building over three plots of park land. Last week, the city filed a “notice of appeal” in the case. A city Law Department spokesman said the notice signals the intent to file an appeal within the next few months.

As public advocate, de Blasio was supportive of the NYU 2031 plan, though his appointee on the City Planning Commission, Michelle de la Uz, was the only member to vote against it.

“Clearly, the mayor is assembling the best team he can,” said Mark Crispin Miller, head of NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan. “[But] the . . . close ties to NYU can’t help but concern us. We are hopeful the mayor will put the needs of the community before the whims of NYU’s administration.”

Another controversial university proposal — NYU Langone’s bid to redevelop Brooklyn’s Long Island College Hospital — worries advocates because of Shorris’ involvement with the university.

The university joined Fortis Group shortly after SUNY trustees tabled a vote on the developer’s plans to turn the hospital into condos.

De Blasio promised to save LICH during his campaign and joined a lawsuit to stop SUNY from selling the hospital. In July, he was arrested during a protest over the hospital’s closure.

NYU is also a revolving door for politicos between jobs. Mayoral contender and former MTA chair Joe Lhota replaced Shorris earlier this year at NYU Langone. Brad Gair, who worked as a disaster-recovery manager in the mayor’s office, took a job with NYU Langone this week.