Quote: value based compliance

In the New York Times article "Corruption, Sewage, Apathy: A Federal Watchdog on What He Saw at NYCHA," the person who served as receiver for the New York City Housing Authority discusses his experience there.  He discusses compliance, in terms of regulatory/what's required versus "values."

You say NYCHA needs to do much more work on its “values-based compliance.”  What is that and why? 

There are basically two kinds of compliance. 

There is the regulatory, which is strictly numbers, the law, getting to the line without going over. - Then there’s value-based compliance. What is the best thing? What is the right thing? What are you trying to accomplish?

You can’t have a rule for everything. But if you have values, it’s like a safety net. People will think about being more conscientious, having more respect for the residents, not assuming that failure is acceptable and trying to do a better job.

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I talk about this wrt historic preservation.  For many developers the idea of "historic" is merely a legal construct, something required by the law.  Versus a felt value for saving buildings, recognizing architectural and place value of buildings, the value of the ensemble of buildings, how a building connects to the street beyond the lot lines, etc.