Last year, New York’s city council reintroduced the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA). The recently amended bill seeks to expand the role of “community land trusts” in acquiring and developing housing by giving qualified nonprofits a “right of first refusal”—a right to offer the first bid and to override private buyers’ offers—on certain lots and residential properties.
The bill would force sellers to notify the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development whenever they put buildings up for sale and to comply with the bill’s elaborate terms. This will inevitably require an army of regulators to conduct oversight and will create needless, months-long delays—worsening New York City’s housing crisis.
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COPA’s supporters point to “successful laws in Washington D.C.” as a model for their bill. But D.C.’s government rolled back that legislation in September amid what it described as “significant financial distress.” I spoke with policy experts and investors who confirmed that Washington’s legislation created major slowdowns in the city’s housing market without achieving proponents’ aims. The District’s experience presents a cautionary tale for New York City.
Washington, D.C. passed the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) in 1980. The law gave tenants and tenant associations a right of first refusal on buildings for sale. It was later amended to permit tenants to transfer these rights to third-party housing providers. COPA would replicate TOPA’s later amendments, giving approved nonprofits and for-profit operators of low-income housing first right to purchase and to override other buyers by matching their terms.
D.C. quickly learned that TOPA would not enable tenants and their representatives to buy buildings en masse. “You’re not going to sell unless you get the best and highest offer,” Yesim Sayin, executive director of the nonpartisan D.C. Policy Center, explained.
Still, the law has stalled transactions. In a March 2025 report, the D.C. Policy Center reported that TOPA delayed tenant-association-involved building sales by an average of five months. Asked whether this has affected investment and sales in the District, Sayin said per-unit “sales volume has been much greater in similar jurisdictions” not subject to the law, such as neighboring Arlington County. As a result, Sayin said, many buildings in D.C. are stuck with owners who want to leave the market and are less equipped than other buyers “to make use” of the properties.
This has led to disinvestment in the District’s housing stock. Felipe Ernst, a D.C.–based investor, noted that the delays from TOPA act as “a deterrent to investment in housing in these communities that desperately need it,” given uncertainties in changing interest rates and business environments during that waiting period.
TOPA’s effects on investment and housing sales eventually became undeniable. In September, Washington, D.C.’s government rolled back the law by passing the RENTAL Act, which exempts multifamily buildings from TOPA for 15 years after they receive a certificate of occupancy.
But D.C.’s failures haven’t shaken New York City legislators. Council Member Sandy Nurse, COPA’s lead sponsor, suggested in a recent op-ed that the bill would “shift power back to tenants and communities.”
The more likely outcome is that Gotham would follow in D.C.’s footsteps. One budget analyst from New York, who wished to remain anonymous ahead of a formal report on the subject, argued that passing COPA would result in “more billable hours for lawyers, tie up owners’ down payments for longer periods of time, and . . . open up the door to exactions from tenants.” The bill, he added, was unlikely to lower housing prices, since transaction costs —in time, legal fees, uncertainty, and delays—“would be factored into sales prices.”
COPA also exempts the groups that purchase these properties from municipal charges and transaction fees, which deprives the city of needed revenue. As the director of New York's Citizens Budget Commission noted, “Exempting more buildings” from such fees “would cost the City more money at a time the budget is already extremely precarious.”
Despite advocates’ insistence to the contrary, nonprofits aren’t always more effective at providing housing. One building managed by the nonprofit East New York Community Land Trust, for example, has had more than 110 violations over the last five years alone.
But COPA’s biggest problem might be its violation of owners’ private property rights. By forcing them to sell to qualified entities who invoke their right of first refusal, New York City would deny owners their right to disposition. Charles Vavruska, an advisor to Councilman-elect Phil Wong, told me he believes the legislation is “clearly unconstitutional.”
A bill that invites city officials to scrutinize voluntary transactions, imposes needless delays, and discourages investment is unlikely to make housing more affordable in New York City. As Washington, D.C.’s experience proves, New York doesn’t need more regulations like COPA. It needs more housing—and leaders who will get out of developers’ way.
Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images