FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 3, 2025
Contact: Will Spisak, will@neweconomynyc.org
Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) Reaches Supermajority in City Council, as New Yorkers Deliver 1,000+ Postcards to Speaker Adams Demanding Passage of the Bill
As housing crisis deepens, New Yorkers’ Halloween-themed action calls for permanently affordable community- and tenant-controlled housing
New Yorkers fighting predatory landlords and rising rents got a special treat this Halloween: news that the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, or COPA (Intro 902), has reached supermajority support in the City Council. The bill, which would curb real estate speculation and displacement by giving qualified nonprofits the first right to purchase multifamily buildings when landlords decide to sell, secured its 34th Council sponsor—making it veto-proof and marking a major step toward passage.
The announcement comes as the COPA coalition continues to grow, with the youth-led Livable Future NYC coalition joining the fight, and Council Members Selvena Brooks-Powers, Kevin Riley and Nantasha Williams calling for COPA’s immediate passage in a viral City & State op-ed.
On Friday, community groups celebrated the surge in support by delivering over 1,000 postcards—and COPA-themed “candy”—to the office of City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. Each postcard, personally signed by a New Yorker, urged Speaker Adams to bring COPA and the broader Community Land Act package to a vote without delay.
The Community Land Act is a package of City Council bills that would give community land trusts (CLTs) and other nonprofits powerful tools to expand permanently affordable, community-controlled housing and community spaces in Black and brown neighborhoods. In addition to COPA, the package includes the Public Land for Public Good Act (Intro 78), which would require the city to prioritize CLTs and other nonprofits in public land dispositions, and legislation to abolish the tax lien sale and replace it with a more equitable system—such as a land bank—that keeps people in their homes.
The legislation builds on the work of more than 20 CLTs, and counting, across all five boroughs that are facilitating neighborhood-led development, combating real estate speculation and displacement, and preserving deeply affordable housing.
“More frightening than ghouls and ghosts is the reality that 87 percent of our city’s rent stabilized apartments are owned by the largest five percent of real estate companies. That landlords have filed 84,000 evictions just this year. That 200,000 Black New Yorkers have been forced out of the city in the past two decades,” said Elise Goldin, Campaign Organizer at New Economy Project, which coordinates the NYC Community Land Initiative. “COPA makes a powerful intervention—giving responsible nonprofit organizations and community land trusts the chance to take land and housing off the speculative market and bring them into permanently affordable community control. We call on Speaker Adams and the City Council to pass COPA and the full Community Land Act now.”
“Social housing is a successful international model that New York City has yet to fully embrace. My bill, the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, would bring us closer to realizing a more robust social housing sector, one that prioritizes people over profit, democracy over landlordism, and community over speculators,” said COPA’s lead sponsor Council Member Sandy Nurse, who represents Bushwick, Brownsville, Cypress Hills, and other parts of East Brooklyn. “There is a reason why cities with healthy social housing sectors have such high quality of life, and it’s time we catch up.”
“Every New Yorker deserves the stability of a safe, affordable home,” said New York City Council Majority Whip Selvena N. Brooks-Powers, who represents Springfield Gardens, Rosedale, Far Rockaway and other parts of Southeast Queens. “The Community Opportunity to Purchase Act is about putting people before profit and ensuring communities like those in Southeast Queens have a real say in their future. For too long, Black and Brown New Yorkers have seen homes lost to speculation and displacement. COPA gives us the tools to keep families rooted and build a fairer, more affordable city for all.”
“In Southeast Queens, we’ve watched generations of homeowners work hard to build stability and community. But in recent years, too many have been priced out, targeted by bad actors, or pushed to sell under pressure. When that happens, we don’t just lose houses, we lose neighbors, history, and the sense of security people have spent decades building,” said Council Member Nantasha Williams, who represents Cambria Heights, Jamaica, St. Albans and other parts of Southeast Queens. “COPA gives neighborhoods like ours a fair chance to hold on to that foundation by keeping homes affordable and in local hands. It’s a practical step toward balance in a market that’s often stacked against working families. And it’s about protecting what people have built here, so the next generation can build on it.”
“New York City must pass COPA as soon as possible. We know from firsthand experience how transformative this legislation could be,” said Brianna Soleyn, a board member of the East New York Community Land Trust. “The ENY CLT put in the work to organize residents and donors to directly purchase our first building, which was neglected by its former owner. Through COPA, the city can support acquisitions like these, of over-leveraged rent stabilized housing stock, to ensure that these buildings are kept affordable and under tenant control. These acquisitions are proven to work and directly improve New Yorkers’ lives. Now that COPA has reached a veto-proof majority in the City Council, we must get it done!”
“Right here in Queens, our community land trust is proving it’s possible to take land off the speculative market and develop deeply affordable homes and community spaces, all while putting people over profit,” said Alexis Foote, co-founder of the ReAL Edgemere Community Land Trust in the Rockaways. “We see COPA as a crucial step toward reparations for Black communities harmed by decades of redlining and disinvestment. Let’s pass COPA and Public Land for Public Good to give all New York City’s tenants and CLTs the tools they need to bring land into community control.”