COPA Passes NYC Council After Six-Year Battle

COPA has once again been approved by City Council, this time with mayoral support.

The bill cleared a City Council vote Thursday, marking a key milestone in the long trajectory of the legislation that gives nonprofits and certain city-designated joint ventures a first chance to purchase distressed buildings that are up for sale.

Thirty-eight lawmakers voted in favor of the revived version of the bill that faced vocal industry pushback since its inception, with two abstaining and nine voting against.

“Today we are going to end the six-year saga of the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act here in the Council,” Nurse said. “Three mayors, four introductions, three hearings, a passage and a veto, a really intense lobbying effort by the real estate industry, all of it comes down to today’s vote.”

While the final version of the bill has been watered down from its original scope to cover a narrower swath of distressed affordable buildings with a higher number of violations, Nurse framed the COPA iteration that passed Thursday as “the most strategic, most operationally sound version” of the legislation.

“We have now thoughtfully taken the time, working with the bill sponsor, working with the industry, working with Council members and other stakeholders,” Speaker Julie Menin said. “The universe of properties was narrowed to about 2,100 buildings from the original approximately 10,000, so it’s been narrowed and worked to a more targeted approach.”

Nurse framed the more modest number of potentially eligible buildings as a way to make COPA more workable for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and to more effectively communicate with eligible landlords.

“The Council has been responsive to stakeholders, but we’re still missing the forest

for the trees,” Kenny Burgos, CEO of the New York Apartment Association, said in a statement. “Nonprofits already own and operate housing across our city, and they’re showing us how untenable it has become. Celebrating legislation without tackling the root issue puts the housing New Yorkers depend on at risk.”

A previous attempt at getting COPA across the finish line also passed the Council in 2025, but Eric Adams vetoed the bill, which Menin allowed to stand in one of her first moves as speaker of the City Council. Real estate industry groups have sought to block or otherwise influence the bill at every turn, with REBNY CEO Jim Whelan citing “constructive engagement” with Nurse and Menin that produced a more “targeted and practical bill.”

Mayor Zohran Mamdani has supported COPA, including it as a key pillar in his administration’s housing plan as an extra layer of protection for tenants in distressed properties at risk of displacement or declining conditions in buildings that could be purchased by speculative buyers.

The final bill text limits the universe of buildings subject to COPA, covering distressed properties with 100 or fewer units that have regulatory agreements managed by HPD. Large mixed-income and affordable multifamily buildings with 485x and 421a as-of-right tax abatements or other city zoning enhancements are exempt from the version of the bill that passed the Council.

Buildings will also need to meet a higher threshold of violations to qualify for a COPA buyout, requiring three Class B or C violations per unit or participation in certain distressed programs. COPA’s transaction window was also trimmed from 160 days to 145 days, a response to industry concerns about potential uncertainty and delays plaguing the sale process. The final version of the bill also omits language that would have let HPD add buildings to the program and extend certain deadlines for COPA eligibility.

“COPA, in any form, is a destructive housing policy for renters, owners, and affordable housing,” Ann Korchak, board president of Small Property Owners of New York, said in a statement. “Giving the right-of-first-refusal to nonprofits shuts out conventional buyers who have the financial wherewithal to immediately improve and rehabilitate a failing building.”

COPA’s predecessors have already rolled out in Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., where versions of a Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act have faced backlash from landlords who claim that the first dibs dynamic has killed deals to sell, refinance or secure title insurance for their buildings.

“Buying and preserving some of the housing we already have is the most immediate way to stop displacement,” Nurse said. “In the hottest real estate market in the country, where transactions happen very quickly and often in cash, we are going to offer some New Yorkers an opportunity to stay.”