Lola, she was a showgirl, and she vetoed COPA

As of now, COPA is dead… and that’s not the COPAcabana.

COPA, or the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, failed to secure the 34 NYC Council votes required to override Eric Adams’ veto on his final day in office.

The bill technically passed the Council in December with 30 votes, but never reached a veto-proof majority, and support eroded further after constitutional and administrative concerns were raised by the city’s Law Department. Without the requisite supermajority, the Council declined to bring the override to the floor, leaving the legislation to flounder.

COPA was conceived as a preservation-focused intervention in the multifamily sales market. The bill would have applied to buildings with four or more units that were either officially deemed distressed or had affordability restrictions that recently expired or were set to expire in the near term. (If you followed the mayoral campaign, the issue of affordable housing is a BIG one — and one that Mayor Mamdani has pledged to address.)

In such cases, city-approved nonprofits — as well as joint ventures between nonprofits and for-profit entities — would have been granted a right of first offer and a subsequent right to match competing bids before a property could be sold on the open market. In practical terms, this would have imposed a mandatory pre-sale notice period and paused many transactions for up to roughly 135 days, shifting leverage away from sellers and toward preservation-oriented buyers. Owners who bypassed the process would have faced fines tied to the purchase price.

Less Filling v. Tastes Great: The two sides of COPA

Supporters of COPA saw the measure as a way to level the playing field for nonprofit housing groups, preserve housing affordability, and prevent distressed or regulated buildings from cycling through speculative ownership.

Opponents viewed COPA as the equivalent of a cold plunge to the buyer pool, causing shrinkage , while slowing transactions, depressing values , and overwhelming Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) with administrative responsibilities it was not equipped to handle. To name them, COPA’s detractors included landlord groups, brokers, and parts of the administration.

Initially, COPA was amended to narrow its scope, shorten timelines, and exclude certain owner-occupied buildings. However, those concerns were not resolved and the Tastes Great Party, aka the opponents, kicked up a fuss until the end of 2023. With Adams’ veto, COPA was DOA, and Mamdani entered office with one less piece of low hanging fruit.

What does this mean for the LES?

For the Lower East Side, the immediate implication is that nothing structurally changes — at least for now. Sales of small and mid-sized multifamily buildings, including older walk-ups with regulatory history, remain governed by existing rules without an added right-of-first-refusal overlay. Deal timelines, buyer competition, and pricing dynamics will continue to be set by the market rather than by a mandatory nonprofit intervention process.

Given the neighborhood’s concentration of aging housing stock, buildings with HPD issues, and properties with expiring affordability agreements, COPA would have been felt acutely here had it passed. Its failure preserves liquidity and certainty for owners and buyers alike.

But, like, where?

On the Lower East Side, the profile points to older rent-stabilized walk-ups along rental blocks like Orchard, Ludlow, Allen, Eldridge, East Broadway, and Grand Street. It wouldn’t, however, apply to the neighborhood’s co-op campuses, condos, or owner-occupied housing.

COPA’s defeat does not mean the underlying policy pressure has disappeared. Calls for a narrower version, a pilot program, or a revival tied to more explicit funding mechanisms are already circulating , and parallel ideas such as a state-level Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act remain under discussion.

REMEMBER: Starting February 8, More For LES will release newsletters 2x/week (Sundays and Wednesdays).