News

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A coalition of over 200 community and affordable housing organizations, including the NYC Community Land Initiative, Supportive Housing Network of New York (the Network), Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB), Habitat NYC and Westchester, Center for NYC Neighborhoods, and New Economy Project released the following statement:

“We applaud the City Council for passing Int. 902-B, the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA), following years of public discussion and technical development with affordable housing developers and experts, tenant organizations, and the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development, among other stakeholders.

“This landmark legislation will significantly expand the supply of deeply and permanently affordable housing, expand homeownership opportunities for New Yorkers, and protect tenants in buildings in greatest need of preservation in long-disinvested neighborhoods.

“We thank the bill’s lead sponsor, Council Member Sandy Nurse, and Speaker Adrienne Adams for their leadership in advancing COPA through the legislative process. We appreciate the administration’s active role in crafting a balanced and effective final bill. We look forward to COPA being enacted into law and respectfully urge Mayor Eric Adams to sign the bill.”

BACKGROUND:

COPA gives vetted, qualified, mission-driven affordable housing organizations a first opportunity to purchase certain distressed and at-risk buildings when they are up for sale. By giving these organizations a fair chance to compete in a market dominated by speculative investors, COPA helps ensure that at-risk buildings can be acquired by organizations committed to working with tenants to stabilize and preserve deeply and permanently affordable housing.

New York City’s COPA legislation covers a narrow subset of buildings at greatest risk of being flipped and losing affordability. COPA creates clear, efficient timelines for preservation purchases, bringing stability to a volatile part of the housing market under extreme speculative pressure. COPA fully excludes all 1-3 family homes, owner-occupied buildings with 5 units or less, buildings sold or transferred between family members, and vacant lots, among other exemptions. A detailed breakdown can be found in this factsheet. 

Deep-pocketed corporations have purchased the vast majority of multifamily buildings up for sale over the past two decades, and the city has lost hundreds of thousands of rent-regulated homes. The City of New York has invested in the growth of nonprofit community land trusts and community development corporations to keep homes affordable and combat the displacement of low-income and Black and brown New Yorkers. Now, through COPA, these organizations will have a new pathway to preserve permanently affordable, community- and tenant-controlled housing, working with mission-aligned partners, including MWBEs and other for-profits.

COPA is a strategic, proven tool to protect affordable housing in high-cost markets. San Francisco’s COPA, enacted in 2019, has already preserved affordable homes for over 1,000 residents—without slowing building sales, which continue to be among the fastest in the country.