A spokesman for Camber said the company inherited violations at the Brooklyn building and made repairs to the boiler to address the heating issues. After acquiring the Bronx building in 2018, Camber made repairs to the building’s heating system, the group’s spokesman said.
During his real estate career, Mr. Gropper has contributed more than $11,000 to the campaigns of local lawmakers, records show. He also attended a fund-raiser for Mr. Adams, who was then the Brooklyn borough president, in May 2018, at the home of a real estate developer named Jamie Wiseman.
About 50 guests, many of whom were in the real estate industry, were at the gathering, according to a spokesman for Camber. At the time, Mr. Gropper was awaiting a recommendation from Mr. Adams about developing two residential buildings in Bushwick — a project that faced local opposition and had been voted against by the local community board.
Mr. Adams had held a hearing on the project about a month before the fund-raiser. Mr. Gropper made a $400 contribution to Mr. Adams on May 22, 2018 — the maximum amount allowed for people who do business with the city.
A week later, Mr. Adams recommended that the project should move forward.
A spokesman for Camber said the developer had worked to win Mr. Adams’s approval by increasing the level of affordable units in the project. Max Young, a spokesman for Mr. Adams, said Mr. Gropper’s contribution played no role in Mr. Adams’s decision making.
Camber’s lobbyist on that Bushwick project was Tiffany Raspberry, who Mr. Adams named as a senior adviser for external affairs last week. Lobbying disclosures show that Ms. Raspberry worked for Camber in 2018 and 2019.
When Mr. Adams was elected mayor, Mr. Gropper also served on the transition team advising him on housing. A spokesman for Camber said Mr. Gropper participated in two Zoom meetings as part of the 56-member housing group’s work, and neither meeting included Mr. Adams.