Our Platform
Gives tenants the right to collectively decide the future of their building when it’s up for sale and a tool to more effectively fight for safer and better living conditions.
- TOPA would give tenants the right of first refusal if their landlord decides to sell their building. Tenants could buy the building together and own it as a cooperative, turn the building into publicly owned housing, or work with a nonprofit to remain a permanently affordable rental.
- The law would also help tenants fight for better conditions in the buildings they currently live in by reducing the incentives for landlords to keep buildings in disrepair to sell them off to the highest buyer.
- While rare, tenants in NYC have purchased buildings before, often as a limited equity co-op in collaboration with a nonprofit buyer. TOPA, which already exists in DC and San Francisco, would make such sales more common.
ENDORSERS
Organizations
- Bailey’s Cafe
- Brooklyn Cooperative Federal Credit Union
- Caribbean Equality Project
- Catholic Migration Services (CMS)
- Center for NYC Neighborhoods
- City Wide Tenant Union
- City-Wide Tenant Union of Rochester
- Community Allies
- Community Service Society of New York
- Cooper Sq. Community Land Trust
- CWTU
- East New York Community Land Trust
- El Puente de Williamsburg
- Equality for Flatbush (E4F)
- For the Many
- FWD Landscape
- Genesee Co-op Federal Credit Union
- Goddard Riverside
- Grow Brownsville
- Hester Street
- HOPE
- Housing Rights Initiative
- Neighbors Together
- New Economy Project
- New York City Community Land Initiative (NYCCLI)
- New York City Network of Worker Cooperatives
- North Star Fund
- NOT ONE MORE BLOCK
- NWBCCC – Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition
- Open New York
- Pratt Center for Community Development
- RENA (Riverside -Edgecombe Neighborhood Association)
- Theatre of the Oppressed NYC
- This Land Is Ours CLT
- TIMBER
- Tulinde, LLC
- UHAB
- United Neighbors Organization (UNO)
- United Tenants of Albany
- Universe City NYC
- Unlock NYC
- Urban Justice Center – Safety Net Project
- Village Preservation
- Western Queens CLT
- Zara Tenant Coalition (ZTC)