The City Council’s Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA, Intro 902) is being sold as a tool to preserve affordable housing and protect communities from outside speculation. Those are worthy goals. But as written, COPA contains serious flaws that could backfire — hurting the very New Yorkers it claims to help: small landlords, tenants, and the broader middle‑class taxpayers who fund city services.
What COPA does and what it doesn’t
Intro 902 would give presumed qualified nonprofit organizations a first opportunity to buy certain multi-family rental buildings (typically three or more units) before they can be offered on the open market. Owners would have to notify the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and wait through a nonprofit “express interest” period — in practice, a delay that can stretch up to several months — before completing a conventional sale.
That limited description understates the real‑world consequences. The policy reshapes incentives across the housing market and contains multiple points where unintended harms can accrue.
It will chill investment in small‑scale rental housing. Many small landlords — teachers, nurses, retirees who own one or two small multifamily buildings — operate on thin margins. A mandatory waiting period and the prospect that a nonprofit may have a superior right to purchase will increase the uncertainty and transaction risk of selling a building. Buyers and lenders price risk. Lenders may tighten underwriting or demand higher rates when a property could be subject to a delayed sale or right‑of‑first‑refusal, reducing resale liquidity and lowering market values.
That makes investments in small rental housing less attractive. The result is predictable: current owners hesitant to sell, fewer buyers with financing, and fewer new investors willing to build or convert housing to rentals. In a city that already struggles with supply constraints, making property transactions riskier will discourage the incremental development and maintenance that keep housing stock functional.
It risks saddling taxpayers with new expenses. COPA’s stated goal is to preserve permanently affordable housing — often by placing properties into community land trusts or nonprofit ownership. Many nonprofits are mission‑driven, but nonprofit ownership can have fiscal effects. Nonprofit entities may seek property tax exemptions or reduced payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs). If a significant number of buildings move off the taxable rolls — or pay reduced PILOTs — the city will face a revenue shortfall that must be filled elsewhere. That shortfall would ultimately fall on middle‑class taxpayers through higher taxes or reductions in services.
Even if most nonprofit‑owned properties remain taxable, the transition process (administrative costs, legal defense of the statute, and any required subsidies to nonprofits with limited capital) will create fiscal demands that require honest accounting before we lock in this program.
Look, the overarching issue is that it creates opportunities for misuse without strong vetting and oversight. The bill proposes an approved nonprofit list, but it is unclear who will ensure those organizations have the financial capacity, governance standards, and transparency to manage complex real estate acquisitions and long‑term affordable stewardship. There have been instances nationwide where organizations with weak finances or governance took on properties they could not sustain, imperiling tenants and creating costly remediation needs.
Without rigorous, independent vetting — including audited financial statements, demonstrated development capacity, conflict‑of‑interest screening, and ongoing performance monitoring — COPA would give powerful new leverage to organizations before the city can guarantee they are fit stewards. That risk is not hypothetical; it is the predictable result when acquisition powers outpace operational oversight.
It can create tenant uncertainty and perverse incentives, delays and ambiguity in the sale process can create instability for tenants. When owners contemplate selling but cannot complete a sale for months, maintenance and improvements can be deferred. Conversely, if nonprofits cannot close purchases because they lack financing, properties can languish under interim ownership or see repeated transactions that disrupt tenants. Policies intended to protect tenants must be designed to reduce, not increase, those risks.
A troubling procedural problem: rushed hearings, secrecy, and partisan tactics beyond the substantive problems with COPA, the process used to move this bill forward is deeply concerning. City Council hearings were accelerated in ways that limited public notice and curtailed opportunities for small landlords, tenants, and community members to weigh in. Some major media outlets also failed to fully inform city residents about the likely trade‑offs, focusing on headlines rather than the details. That lack of transparency and the apparent push for a veto‑proof passage screams straight out of a socialist/communist playbook: hurried, top‑down policymaking that sidelines public input and avoids robust scrutiny. Such tactics erode trust and raise the likelihood of harmful, unintended outcomes.
Constructive fixes and alternatives
If preserving affordable housing is the goal, the City Council should slow down and fix COPA before advancing a final, broad mandate. Reasonable, targeted reforms would address the bill’s weak points:
Narrow the scope. Limit the program to buildings demonstrably at risk of conversion or speculative displacement, not broadly to every multifamily sale.
Require demonstrated nonprofit capacity. Only nonprofits that show audited finances, committed capital, and proven project‑management experience should be eligible to exercise purchase rights.
Preserve tax revenue. Include requirements that protect the tax base (e.g., binding PILOT agreements, no automatic tax exemptions) or mandate compensating revenue measures.
Shorten timelines and protect transactions. Ensure timelines are tight, with penalties or automatic release if nonprofits fail to make a bona fide offer, so sellers and buyers are not left in limbo.
Create independent oversight. An independent review board should vet and monitor nonprofits, with clear performance metrics and the ability to remove organizations that fail to deliver.
Pilot, evaluate, and sunset. Implement COPA as a time‑limited pilot, with rigorous evaluation and publicly available results before scaling up.
What New Yorkers can do
Legislators should be able to support affordable‑housing tools without sacrificing fiscal responsibility or the health of the housing market. New Yorkers worried about COPA’s risks should press their council members for amendments that preserve the spirit of community stewardship while protecting taxpayers, tenants, and small landlords. Demand clearer public notice for hearings, insist on independent vetting mechanisms for nonprofits, and urge that any major program be piloted and evaluated before being made permanent.
Affordable housing is an urgent, legitimate priority. But well‑intentioned policy can do real damage if enacted without clear guardrails and without giving the public a full and fair chance to participate. COPA in its current form risks chilling investment, undermining city revenues, and creating new vulnerabilities for tenants. That is a trade‑off the City Council should not make without substantial revisions, transparent process, and strong safeguards.
