Meet Queens' dirty 1/2 dozen

From left to right: Caban, Won, Schulman, Gutierrez, Lee, Williams all seek to royally fuck over 3-family homeowners

From One City Rising:

COPA - Forcing Small Landlords to Sell to the City?

The Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) is now making its way through the City Council. The bill gives qualified non-profit organizations a right of first opportunity to purchase certain residential buildings when they are offered for sale. It requires property owners to offer registered non-profits both the first and last opportunity to purchase their property before it can be sold in on the open market. This can and will add months, or even up to a year, to a transaction and introduces significant procedural hurdles throughout the process.

COPA currently has the support of a veto-proof majority in the City Council, a body not known for astute law making. The bill is garnering tremendous support and seems highly likely to pass.

If you wish to stop this, please contact Speaker Adrienne Adams who controls which bills get to the floor to be voted on. The next City Council meeting is scheduled for November 25.

Please write to her today and tell her you are against this bill. Her email address is SpeakerAdams@council.nyc.gov. The text for the email is provided at the bottom.

Details about COPA

Here are the key provisions of the bill:

* The bill aims to preserve and expand permanently affordable, community-controlled, and tenant-controlled housing and to prevent the displacement of low-income residents.

* It applies to residential buildings with three or more dwelling units.

* Owners must notify the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and a list of qualified entities at least 180 days before selling an eligible building.

* Qualified entities have 60 days to express intent to purchase and then a total of 120 days from the initial notice to submit a competitive offer.

* The qualified entities also can match any bona fide third-party offer the owner receives. These are generally non-profit organizations certified by HPD that demonstrate a commitment to creating and preserving permanently affordable housing for extremely low, very low, and low-income residents.

* An owner who violates the provisions of the bill would be liable for a civil penalty of $30,000.

Concerns are being raised about the consequences of COPA. Click here and here for assessments of the bill.

City Council Member Vickie Paladino has again warned about the bill. Paladino notes:

“After they bankrupt these buildings with rent control and green mandates like Local Law 97, politically connected nonprofits will buy them up on behalf of the city for conversion to public housing.”

The role of progressive-approved NGOs as oligarch-controlled partners to the DSA’s goal of a “Red Vienna” moment must not be ignored.

Letter to Speaker Adams

Dear Speaker Adams,

I am opposed to Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (File# 0902-2024). I believe the bill will be detrimental to NYC and will damage the multifamily sales market because it will:

- Add Months of Forced Delay to Every Sale Transaction

- Reduce Property Values by Shrinking the Buyer Pool

- Increase Bureaucratic and Paperwork Burdens

I therefore request that you do not submit the bill to be voted on.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.