NYC Multifamily Owners, Brokers Fear COPA

24 November 2025

Property owners and brokers fear a four-letter acronym that, until recently, seemed a long-shot item on progressive wishlists: COPA.

If passed, the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act would give nonprofits approved by the city the first opportunity to buy buildings with three or more residential units.

It was first introduced in 2021, and the City Council has held multiple hearings on the measure, most recently in June. Last week, however, the bill was on a list of measures set to age, meaning it would be eligible for a Council vote.

It was ultimately pulled from that list and is being negotiated between the bill’s sponsor, Council member Sandy Nurse and the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.

The bill’s movement has some real estate professionals spooked. Broker Bob Knakal sounded the alarm on social media platform X last week, warning that the City Council “dropped a bomb on the multifamily market.” (In his thread, Knakal incorrectly claimed the bill had passed a preliminary vote.) He and others argue that the rules would disrupt the city’s housing market by tying up inventory and scaring investors away.

Nurse is expected to introduce amendments to the bill, though as of Friday, the potential changes on the table appeared to be minimal, according to one source familiar with negotiations.

Multifamily “bomb”

Under COPA, owners looking to sell their buildings would need to notify HPD at least 180 days before moving forward with such plans. They also need to provide the agency with various records, including a detailed income and expense report for the past year.

Then a “qualified entity” — defined as nonprofits on HPD’s Qualified Preservation Buyers List or community land trusts, which are committed to providing housing affordable to low- to extremely-low income tenants — has 60 days to submit a notice that they intend to bid on the property. The qualified entity has 120 days from the owner’s notice to HPD to make an offer. During that time, the owner cannot accept other offers, giving the qualified entity time to match any other bids.

Delayed closings can make it harder to line up financing and get title insurance. Injecting uncertainty into these deals would deter investors and lenders, opponents say.

“It will slow transactions dramatically,” said Matt Cosentino, who leads multifamily sales at Brooklyn-based brokerage TerraCRG. “A lot of the owners that we deal with are smaller, so-called mom and pop owners, who don’t necessarily have time to waste.”

Such rules also preclude 1031 exchanges, he said. These deals, which allow a real estate investor to defer capital gains from the sale of one property by investing that profit into a similar property, must close within a 180-day window.

For some, the mere concept of the city getting involved in these transactions is anathema.

“The idea of having to tell your government that you are selling your property seems like the most basic, un-American idea,” Cosentino said.

Developer Humberto Lopes called the bill “disgusting” and described its requirements as an unfair steering to a specific kind of buyer.

“What gives you the right to supersede everybody?” he asked.

Proponents of the bill say it will help curb speculation and level the playing field for nonprofits to bid on properties.

Last year, East New York Community Land Trust bought a 21-unit, rent-stabilized apartment at 248 Arlington Avenue for $3 million. The group was able to do so without COPA, but Hannah Anousheh, director of the East New York Community Land Trust, said the bill will help pave the way for deals where the landlord is not willing to negotiate with tenants or nonprofits.

The East New York Community Land Trust is working with the building’s tenants to convert their units to co-ops. In this arrangement, the group will maintain ownership of the land and the building is leased to the co-op, where prices are kept at a certain level.

“This is about helping to bring tons of buildings under responsible ownership,” Anousheh said.

National trend

Other cities have implemented similar policies. In San Francisco, nonprofits have 30 days to act on their right of first refusal. Washington, D.C., is home to the nation’s oldest Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, enacted in 1980, where a building’s tenants are given the first crack at buying their building. Chicago is piloting its own version. The state legislature in New York has also proposed a version of TOPA.

Critiques of these programs are similar to those raised around COPA in New York and led to amendments to TOPA in Washington, D.C., this year. Still, since 2006, tens of thousands of D.C. units have been preserved as affordable as a result of TOPA, according to a 2023 report by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.

Supporters and even some critics of these policies agree that the success of COPA and TOPA programs hinges on nonprofits being able to tap into a steady stream of capital and tenants’ ability to organize.

Some of the owners who spoke to The Real Deal about COPA thought a pilot version that applied to a smaller pool of buildings, along a shorter window than 180 days, would potentially be workable.

Nurse would not comment on what amendments she is considering, but in a statement, said that her bill has the support of 33 other council members and 35 affordable housing providers.

“We are in an affordability crisis in New York City and COPA gives us another tool to preserve and create more affordable housing,” she said. “We are thrilled to be engaging with many stakeholders to develop a program that helps us address the housing crisis.”

Jay Martin, executive vice president of the New York Apartment Association, called the bill’s scope “ridiculous” and said few nonprofits are in a position to buy buildings, especially those that require extensive renovations.

“Another buyer into the market isn’t the problem. It is that the resources needed to buy the buildings aren’t there,” he said.

There’s also a question of whether HPD’s staff will be overwhelmed as the intermediary in these deals.

During the June hearing, HPD echoed that concern, recommending that the program be narrowly tailored to the distressed buildings to avoid administrative challenges and negative impacts to the housing market.

Agency spokesperson Matt Rauschenbach said on Friday that HPD remains “engaged” with Nurse.

“When legislation is proposed that may significantly impact the housing landscape, we are committed to providing input and feedback to ensure that all potential effects are fully evaluated and considered,” he said in a statement.

These negotiations are happening as the industry also tries to fend off a bill that would set minimum construction wages for housing projects with 100 or more units that receive $1 million or more in public financing. The Council is also considering a trio of bills that would set minimum thresholds for the percentage of two- and three-room apartments in city-funded projects, cap the percentage of studio apartments in senior housing and mandate that a minimum percentage of city-funded housing is affordable to very and extremely low-income tenants.

One affordable housing developer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, posited that the City Council, in the final weeks of the Adams administration, is trying to reclaim oversight over housing in the city, after voters approved ballot measures that weaken its authority over certain land use actions.
“Overall, they just keep making it harder to do business in New York City,” the developer said. “We are at a point where the city council and certain advocates are viewing investors as a negative.”