The Greater Harlem Housing Development Corporation has been unable to comply with a $2.55 million "forgivable" loan from the city for rehabilitation of some dilapidated apartment buildings in Harlem that the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce had acquired from the city for a "nominal" amount, according to a lengthy front page article in today's edition of The New York Times by Russ Buettner.

"The chamber's development arm twice faced foreclosure on the collection of properties; utility bills went unpaid, and renovations were never done," the article said, and the loan came "just as the administration was in the final push to gain City Council approval for one of its largest and most controversial rezoning initiatives, a plan to change the rules for development in an area that straddles 125th Street."

"Such things do not move forward," the article continued, "without the approval of the local council member. And in Harlem, that person was Inez E. Dickens, a woman with a lifetime's worth of connections to the Harlem chamber and its president, Lloyd A. Williams. Ms. Dickens's father had been president of the chamber before Mr. Williams; she had served on its board; and Mr. Williams had been among her few fund-raisers."

The article noted that Ms. Dickens, majority whip of the City Council, initially spoke against the rezoning proposal, "but on April 30, 2008, Ms. Dickens threw her support behind the plan, and directed her colleagues on the City Council to approve it, a decision that provoked jeers and taunting from dozens of Harlem residents who had turned up at City Hall. The same day, the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development notified Mr. Williams that it was finalizing the $2.55 million grant.

"The new loan," the article continued, "has yet to yield much beyond additional problems. Repair work that was supposed to be done to the more than dozen buildings along 135th Street in the heart of Harlem has not been completed; building code violations that were to be corrected are still unresolved. And in court filings this year, Mr. Williams conceded that Greater Harlem Housing was 'unable to manage and fund the operation of the properties on its own.'"

Ms. Dickens declined a request for an interview with The Times. She joined the Council in 2006. "Her father, Lloyd E. Dickens, was a real estate developer and a state assemblyman who had served as the chamber's president before Mr. Williams. After she and her sister, Delores Richards, took over their father's real estate company, Ms. Dickens was listed as a member of the chamber's executive board, including after she joined the Council," the article said.

"In the two years since that contentious vote in City Hall, Greater Harlem Housing has continued to founder. In March, it filed a petition in State Supreme Court seeking permission to sell a large percentage of its interest in the properties to a private real estate developer...for $1.5 million, a fraction of their appraised value.The group owed $100,000 to Consolidated Edison and more than $800,000 to people who lent the group money to help it avoid losing the properties in the 2005 foreclosure," the article continued.

"The terms of the 2008 grant from the city required that the repairs be completed and all outstanding code violations be resolved by June 3, 2010," the article said, adding that "neither condition has been met."