Real Estate Lawyers Make Strong Case for NYC’s COPA Housing Preservation Bill
Two experienced real estate attorneys have come forward with a compelling legal defense of New York City’s controversial Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA), arguing that the legislation represents a practical and legally sound approach to preserving affordable housing in a market increasingly dominated by speculative investors.
David Dubrow, senior counsel at ArentFox Schiff LLP, and Matthew Hall, senior partner at Goldstein Hall PLLC, both writing in their individual capacities, have spent decades representing clients in affordable housing transactions across the city. Their professional experience lends significant weight to their argument that Int. 902-A, now before the City Council, would meaningfully strengthen the city’s ability to maintain stable, affordable housing without disrupting the real estate market.
How COPA Creates Pathways for Community Ownership
The legislation establishes a framework that gives mission-driven developers and community land trusts a first opportunity to purchase buildings when landlords choose to sell. Critically, the bill requires these prequalified buyers to make competitive offers, which property owners remain free to reject.
“COPA creates pathways for tenant ownership, as well as preservation of rental apartments, without forcing parties into negotiations,” the attorneys wrote in their City Limits opinion piece. The bill leverages existing state and local preservation financing programs, including Neighborhood Pillars and the NYC Acquisition Fund, which are already designed to support mission-driven developers.
The attorneys emphasized that private lenders, including New York’s extensive network of community development financial institutions, stand ready to provide additional capital for COPA purchases. This existing infrastructure addresses concerns about whether qualified buyers would have sufficient access to financing.
Building on New York’s Legacy of Tenant Ownership
New York City has a long history of supporting building conversions led by tenants and nonprofit organizations. COPA builds on this legacy while laying groundwork for a new generation of tenant- and community-run housing.
The city boasts a robust landscape of housing preservation organizations, ranging from nonprofit community development corporations and community land trusts to minority and women-owned business enterprises and other for-profit developers committed to affordability. Both attorneys’ firms have represented these organizations in preservation deals for years.
While current debates around the housing crisis focus heavily on zoning changes to enable new construction, preserving existing affordable housing remains one of the most cost-effective and reliable strategies for keeping low-income New Yorkers securely housed. Yet in today’s market, responsible purchasers face significant disadvantages when competing with deep-pocketed investors and all-cash buyers who can move quickly and bankroll projects.
Addressing Market Competition Concerns
The attorneys argue that COPA levels the playing field by giving carefully vetted nonprofits and for-profit affordable housing developers something they rarely have today: notice that a building is being sold, a brief window to express interest, and the opportunity to make a competitive, market-rate offer.
“As a result, most preservation opportunities are lost before responsible buyers even learn a building is for sale,” they explained. Under COPA, sellers remain free to reject offers from mission-driven buyers and sell their buildings on the open market.
The legal framework has proven successful in other cities. San Francisco enacted its COPA law in 2019, and it has quickly become one of the city’s most effective preservation tools without slowing the market. Today, San Francisco’s real estate market remains among the fastest and most active in the country.
Five Years of Careful Design and Refinement
The City Council’s five-year process of designing and refining COPA, based on feedback from New York’s affordable housing community and lessons from San Francisco and other cities, reflects a thoughtful and collaborative approach to policy-making.
Int. 902-A is a balanced bill that focuses on a strategic subset of multifamily buildings where expiring affordability agreements or physical or financial distress expose tenants to heightened risk of harassment or evictions. Small properties, including owner-occupied buildings with five or fewer units, and property owners experiencing hardship are fully exempt from COPA.
Legal Soundness and Market Compatibility
The attorneys characterize COPA as both legally sound and market-compatible, arguing it will meaningfully advance the city’s affordable housing and preservation goals. Their professional assessment counters concerns raised by some real estate industry representatives who worry about potential impacts on property rights and market fluidity.
The legislation’s careful balance between tenant protection and property owner rights reflects constitutional principles established in decades of property law jurisprudence. By requiring competitive offers and preserving sellers’ right to reject, COPA avoids the taking issues that have undermined similar legislation in other jurisdictions.
“We applaud the City Council for taking meaningful steps to restore balance to an affordable housing market that, in our experience, is frequently distorted by speculative pressures,” Dubrow and Hall concluded. “We urge the City Council to pass COPA immediately.”
The Broader Context of Housing Preservation
The attorneys’ support for COPA comes at a critical moment for New York City’s affordable housing landscape. The city faces an ongoing affordable housing crisis with rising rents, displacement pressures, and an insufficient supply of units accessible to low- and moderate-income families.
Mission-driven developers and community land trusts offer proven models for maintaining permanent affordability while giving residents a stake in their homes. These organizations typically operate with thin margins focused on community benefit rather than profit maximization, making them ideal stewards for buildings at risk of losing their affordability.
The legislation also addresses power imbalances in the real estate market, where information asymmetries often favor speculative investors over community-based organizations. By creating transparent notice requirements and standardized procedures, COPA ensures that mission-driven buyers have a fair opportunity to compete.
Responding to Critics
The attorneys’ opinion piece directly responds to concerns raised in an earlier City Limits article questioning whether COPA is “ready for primetime.” Their practical experience with housing preservation transactions across New York City provides empirical grounding for their confidence in the bill’s workability.
They emphasize that COPA does not force unwilling sellers into transactions or artificially depress property values. Instead, it creates a brief pause in the sales process to allow qualified mission-driven buyers to submit competitive offers, preserving market dynamics while expanding opportunities for community ownership.
The attorneys’ professional credibility on both sides of real estate transactions, representing both buyers and sellers in complex housing deals, strengthens their argument that COPA strikes an appropriate balance between competing interests.
Looking Ahead
As the City Council considers COPA in its current legislative session, the legal endorsement from experienced real estate attorneys adds substantial credibility to arguments for passage. Their assertion that the bill is “legally-sound and market-compatible” addresses concerns about potential constitutional challenges or market disruption.
The legislation represents a significant shift in how New York City approaches affordable housing preservation, empowering community-based organizations and tenants while maintaining property owner rights. If passed, COPA would join a growing number of cities implementing similar policies to counteract speculative investment and preserve housing affordability.
For advocates of housing justice, COPA offers a pragmatic tool to address displacement and affordability without waiting for large-scale new construction to ease market pressures. For tenants in at-risk buildings, it provides a potential pathway to stable, permanently affordable housing or even collective ownership.
The coming weeks will reveal whether the City Council embraces this approach to housing preservation or allows concerns about market intervention to stall legislation that, according to these legal experts, represents sound policy grounded in decades of successful practice.
