Tenant & Community Opportunity to Purchase Policies
Tenant and Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA and COPA) policies are being proposed around the country, with potentially substantial impacts on housing affordability, community stability and power, and tenant quality of life. A LISC research brief shares TOPA implementation lessons from Washington, D.C., where LISC DC has a prominent role in the process, and offers evidence about the impact of TOPA-like policies, based on preliminary LISC analyses of housing market dynamics in New York City.
Summary
Tenant and Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA or COPA) policies are being proposed around the country, with potentially substantial impacts on housing affordability, community stability and power, and tenant quality of life. These policies give tenants or their representatives (in the case of TOPA) or nonprofits (in the case of COPA) the first chance to buy their buildings when the owner decides to sell, and the opportunity to match a third-party offer. Despite the newness of many policy proposals, TOPA has a 40-year history of being implemented in Washington, D.C., in ways that have contributed to affordability and community stability in one of the fastest-gentrifying cities in the country. Six other jurisdictions have TOPA or COPA policies in place for multifamily properties or manufactured homes, including San Francisco, which established COPA in 2019. This brief 1) describes how TOPA works in Washington, D.C., based on the experiences of LISC DC which has a prominent role in the TOPA process; 2) offers implementation lessons from DC about organizing, technical assistance, and financing needs; and 3) provides evidence about the impact of TOPA-like policies, based on preliminary LISC analyses of housing market dynamics in New York City. Findings suggest:
- TOPA and COPA are workable and impactful policy instruments which can be implemented even in hot-market locations: in DC, TOPA, combined with preservation funding, has preserved over 2,100 units of affordable housing just since 2018.
- To realize impact, TOPA and COPA policies must be paired with resources for tenant organizing and legal assistance; grants and affordable financing to help tenants acquire and rehabilitate their properties in ways that ensure their affordability and good maintenance; and long-term support for building management and sustainability.
- Preliminary research by LISC modeling the effect of TOPA or COPA-like subsidies suggest the potential benefits of the policies on tenant quality of life. In New York, maintenance violations appear to decrease three-fold in properties after being sold and then supported by affordable subsidy, compared to similar properties that were merely sold to another owner.1