“COPA is a sensible, targeted tool to support organized tenants and vetted preservation buyers to fight displacement in the buildings where New Yorkers’ safety and stability is most under threat.”
Across the five boroughs, organized tenants are fighting to ensure the livability and affordability of our homes—often alongside mission-driven preservation partners. The Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (Intro 902-B), or COPA, would strengthen these efforts to preserve affordable housing and fight displacement. COPA would give qualified preservation buyers committed to long-term affordability the first opportunity to purchase properties when the landlord decides to sell.
Backed by a coalition of over 200 community-based organizations, unions, faith institutions and more, the City Council passed COPA in December with a strong majority. But on his last day in office, Eric Adams vetoed the bill. Now, New Yorkers are demanding that the City Council override the veto and enact this essential anti-speculation tool for tenants and community-based organizations to protect our neighborhoods and our homes.
The tenants of 705 and 709 West 170th St. offer a stark example of why New York City needs COPA. Not long after Daniel Ohebshalom became owner about 20 years ago, conditions began deteriorating drastically. Ohebshalom was named the worst landlord in New York City in back-to-back years by the Public Advocate’s Office. Tenants have endured entire weeks, including holidays, without heat and hot water. They’ve dealt with mold, leaking pipes, and smoke from boiler fires. They’ve lived with malfunctioning front doors that made it easy for intruders and squatters to enter. Imagine so many rats at night you’d think the ground was moving.
During the pandemic, conditions deteriorated even further. Tenants organized in protest and management retaliated with menacing phone calls and threats of eviction, heat and hot water shut offs, and further neglect of repairs. With the help of Manhattan Legal Services, tenants brought a harassment case against Ohebshalom that has dragged on for nearly three years. The tenants continue to organize alongside Northern Manhattan CLT and Met Council on Housing, to demand collective ownership and preservation of their homes.
Tenants know that the court system alone will never deliver the long-term security they are fighting for. Even when they win repairs, buildings can still be sold to another slumlord, and the speculation and harassment cycle starts again. Tens of thousands of New York City tenants currently suffer from this system in which predatory corporations have the upper hand and perpetuate a status quo of neglected repairs, harassment and eviction.
COPA will change that dynamic, creating transparency and a real opportunity for tenants and mission-driven community partners to step in when a building is for sale. It covers a select subset of properties with deep distress and high violation counts that signal displacement risk. Instead of backroom deals and surprise sales, COPA would require notice and a fair window for qualified nonprofit buyers—including community land trusts, and those working with vetted private partners—to make a competitive offer. Sellers retain the right to approve or reject the offer, and preservation buyers have the opportunity to match third-party private offers.
COPA is a sensible, targeted tool to support organized tenants and vetted preservation buyers to fight displacement in the buildings where New Yorkers’ safety and stability is most under threat.
Nine years ago, residents of Washington Heights and Inwood came together to form the Northern Manhattan Community Land Trust (NMCLT). They were tired of reacting to displacement and speculation, and were determined to advance an alternative: permanent affordability through community control. 705 and 709 West 170th St. tenants began working with NMCLT to help transition the buildings to permanent community ownership. Faced with possible sale of the buildings without their knowledge, the tenants now want more than another landlord; they want a path to ownership. COPA is a necessary tool for tenants to intervene in and end the predatory cycle, keeping homes livable and affordable for the long haul.
Our elected leadership should choose now to promote a basic value that shouldn’t be controversial: housing is a home first. For tenants living and working in this city, our homes are not vehicles for investment and profit; they are where we raise our families, rest our heads and build our communities. COPA would help families preserve these homes, and the fabric of our city, for generations to come. We urge the City Council to override Eric Adam’s veto.
Gilbert Butcher is a tenant leader at 705 and 709 West 170th Street, Manhattan. Paloma Lara is President of Northern Manhattan Community Land Trust.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
