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Testimony to the New York City Council
Committee on Housing and Buildings

June 3, 2025

“Testimony in Support of the Community Land Act”

Thank you, Chair Sanchez and members of the Committee on Housing and Buildings, for holding today’s hearing and for the opportunity to testify. My name is Will Spisak and I am a Senior Policy Strategist at New Economy Project, a citywide economic justice organization. Our mission is to build an economy that works for all, rooted in cooperation, racial and neighborhood equity, and ecological sustainability. For 30 years, we have worked with community groups to challenge corporations that harm communities and perpetuate inequality and poverty, and to advance cooperative and community-led development through public banking, community land trusts, worker and financial cooperatives, and other democratically controlled initiatives.

More than 20 CLTs are organizing across the five boroughs—up from just two CLTs a decade ago. Through CLTs, communities collectively own and steward land, ensuring it is used for permanently affordable housing and other critical needs. CLTs are a flexible, proven model to protect public subsidy in affordable housing and advance neighborhood-led development without displacement. New York City’s CLTs are stewarding more than 1,200 deeply affordable rental apartments and shared equity cooperatives, as well as community and commercial hubs, green spaces, and other vital infrastructure in low income neighborhoods of color.

I’m pleased to testify today to urge the Committee and Council to pass the Community Land Act, an urgently-needed set of policies that would help qualified nonprofits, including community land trusts (CLTs), bring land and housing into permanently affordable community ownership. The Act includes three bills being discussed today: Public Land for Public Good (Intro 78), the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) (Intro 902) and the Resolution in support of the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) (Reso 374). We also support the Land Bank Bill (Intro 570). Together, these measures will give community land trusts (CLTs) and other nonprofits vital opportunities to meet their communities’ housing and economic development needs, combat displacement of low-income New Yorkers, and build lasting community wealth.

We ask the Council to also pass Intros 1006 and 1007, expanding the definition of CLTs to ensure that city agencies are empowered to work with CLTs meeting a wide range of community needs, including and not limited to housing.

Finally, we urge the City Council to fund the Citywide CLT Initiative at $3 million in the FY2026 budget. We are pleased that Speaker Adams and the Council committed to doubling this urgently needed funding for CLT operations and organizing, to support the growing number of CLTs reaching next stages of growth and land management. Enhanced funding will support 21 organizations, including grassroots CLTs and citywide technical assistance providers, to meet the growing and urgent need for CLTs.

The Community Land Act includes:

• Public Land for Public Good (Intro 78), which would require New York City to prioritize CLTs and nonprofit developers when disposing of city-owned land, to ensure public land is used for permanently affordable housing and other public benefit. We recommend amending Intro 78 to explicitly allow joint ventures between nonprofits and mission-aligned developers including MWBEs, and to pass the bill this year.

  Public land is an increasingly precious resource that must be prioritized for the public good. For decades, the city has effectively prioritized for-profit developers when transferring public land—contributing to market-rate development, extraction of public subsidies over time, and displacement pressures in low-income Black and Brown communities. A 2019 analysis by the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development found that nonprofits consistently develop more deeply affordable housing than their for-profit counterparts. A 2023 NYCCLI analysis we co-conducted found that, from 2019 to 2023, 48% of nonprofit-developed housing units were affordable to extremely low income households, compared to just 28% of for-profit units.

• Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, or COPA (Intro 902), which would give CLTs and other qualified nonprofits the first right to purchase multifamily buildings when a landlord decides to sell. Modeled on legislation that has preserved thousands of affordable homes in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and other jurisdictions, COPA would help curb speculation and expand the supply of permanently-affordable, community-controlled housing. We also urge the Council to pass a resolution calling on the state to enact the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) at the state level (Reso 374), to enable tenants to partner with CLTs and mission-driven nonprofits to preserve and create affordable housing statewide.

  To ensure nonprofits can meaningfully exercise their COPA rights, the Council must amend COPA before passage, adding an explicit right of first refusal for qualified nonprofits, to ensure they have the right to purchase a property on the same terms as a competing third-party offer. This type of provision is standard in COPA and TOPA statutes across the country and essential to their effectiveness. We urge the Council to also expand the definition of “Residential Property” subject to COPA to include vacant property zoned for residential buildings with three or more units.

  Dozens of tenant associations are currently working with CLTs and other nonprofits to negotiate community purchases of their buildings. These tenants and groups are willing and able to move projects forward and urgently need COPA to bring landlords to the table.

• Permanently Abolishing the NYC Tax Lien Sale, which harms and destabilizes low-income and Black and Brown communities. The Council must move beyond reforming the lien sale and end this predatory policy, once and for all, and replace it with an equitable, rational system that preserves affordable housing and keeps New Yorkers in their homes.

  To advance this goal we call on the City Council to pass Intro 570, which creates a land bank that can replace the tax lien trust, steward properties, and work with CLTs and other entities to maintain permanent affordability. We have provided detailed suggestions to bill sponsors to strengthen the proposed land bank’s governance structure and ensure that land bank dispositions prioritize social housing and community-led economic development. These changes include prioritizing CLTs and nonprofits in all land bank dispositions (not just for affordable housing); prioritizing permanent affordability in all housing dispositions; and ensuring CLT representation on the land bank’s governing board.

The Community Land Act has generated tremendous momentum since the Committee’s 2023 hearing on the bills. More than 150 community, housing and environmental justice organizations endorse the legislative package and are actively working toward its passage. Thousands of New Yorkers have submitted postcards calling on the City Council to pass the bills. Polling shows New York voters overwhelmingly support social housing, and 82% of New Yorkers support a Tenant Opportunity to Purchase.

Nearly two-thirds of City Council Members co-sponsor the bills, and we have coordinated in-depth policy briefings for Council Members and staff—showcasing successful local projects that the Community Land Act would multiply across New York; engaging San Francisco and Washington, D.C., legislators and housing providers to share their experiences and lessons learned over years of COPA and TOPA implementation; and more. We have provided detailed information about the bills to the City Council and administration, answering questions about the bills and discussing pathways forward.

The Community Land Act is broadly popular, well-studied, and modeled on proven approaches to create and preserve permanently affordable housing and community space. The City Council must act this year to ensure the bills’ passage.

In the face of federal disinvestment and an increasingly dire affordability crisis, New York City must take bold action to combat displacement and expand the supply of truly affordable, resident-led housing. Collective land ownership through CLTs is one of the most effective ways to achieve these goals.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today.