Mayor Mamdani-backed NYC housing bill dies in the City Council

An affordable housing bill championed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani is officially dead in the City Council after failing to win sufficient support, including from new Speaker Julie Menin, to overcome a last-minute veto by former Mayor Eric Adams.

Mamdani’s office on Wednesday conceded defeat for the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, which would give nonprofits and some private developers first dibs on distressed apartment buildings, with an eye toward preserving potentially thousands of apartments as affordable units.

While the measure easily won City Council passage in December, doubt remained over whether it enjoyed the 34 votes necessary to overcome the Adams veto and opposition by real estate interests and building owners. The deadline for any override attempt is Thursday.

“The Mayor wanted the Speaker to bring the COPA bill to the floor for a veto override, and Mayor Mamdani was making calls yesterday to Council Members reiterating his support for the legislation and asking for their support of the override,” Dora Pekec, senior spokesperson for Mamdani, said in a statement to Gothamist. “We look forward to working with bill sponsors to reintroduce the legislation this year and work toward its passage.”

Menin abstained when the City Council approved COPA in December. Jack Lobel, a spokesperson for Menin, said on Wednesday that the council would only move to override bills with a supermajority of support.

“COPA did not pass with a supermajority of support in December and still does not have a supermajority today,” Lobel said in the statement, which did not indicate whether the speaker supported the legislation. “The Council looks forward to working with bill sponsors and all stakeholders on next steps.”

As late as Wednesday afternoon, backers of the legislation said they were trying to cobble the necessary 34 votes for a supermajority, before the mayor’s office made clear that support for an override had fallen short.

COPA would allow organizations and housing developers to bid on buildings with serious housing code violations or expiring affordability agreements, for up to three and a half months before they hit the open market. Its backers contend the advance notice is necessary to help maintain such units as affordable.

Adams’ veto came amid stiff opposition from real estate industry and landlord groups, which contend the measure would increase red tape and ultimately reduce the housing supply.

Supporters said it would affect just 1% of housing transactions, but that would still mean many thousands of apartments would be affected.

“While I am disappointed we are not defending the Council and will not override the veto, COPA has been the Progressive Caucus’s top priority for four years and we are not backing down,” the bill’s sponsor, Councilmember Sandra Nurse said in a statement on Wednesday.

She added, “The bottom line is this: if we do not have stronger protections to keep working class New Yorkers here, they will continue to leave. I look forward to working with Speaker Menin on re-introducing the bill and passing it this year."

Will Spisak, a senior policy strategist at New Economy Project, a nonprofit that supports the legislation, said in an interview Tuesday that COPA was needed to keep tenants from being displaced, particularly in gentrifying communities of color.

He estimated that out of 51,000 buildings sold each year across the five boroughs, just over 500 would be eligible for COPA, but that these buildings included “ a significant number of units of affordable housing that are in danger of being lost.”

“ We need to build deeply and truly affordable housing across New York City,” Spisak said, “but we also need a comprehensive preservation strategy to preserve the affordable housing we already have.”

He said the legislation last week appeared to have secured a 34-vote supermajority, enough to override Adams' veto. But since then, he said, some councilmembers have withdrawn their support in the face of lobbying by real estate interests.

By Spisak's count on Tuesday, just 32 councilmembers now back the measure, similar to the vote total in December, when the bill was adopted in a 31-10 vote.

Deliberations over COPA have gotten heated, with members of the nonprofit Small Property Owners of New York angrily shouting at members of the council’s committee on housing and buildings after the panel unanimously voted in support of the bill on Dec. 18, sending it to the full council.

Ann Korchak, the board president of SPONY, issued a statement on Tuesday claiming “COPA will make New York City an affordable housing wasteland and trigger the extinction of small owners.”

James Whelan, the president of the Real Estate Board of New York, said the legislation would translate into less housing being built across the five boroughs.

“The City will pay more per unit, deliver fewer homes overall, and continue to fall short in producing at a scale New Yorkers need,” Whelan said in a statement on Tuesday. “Our housing crisis will worsen and the City will become even less affordable.”

Among the real estate professionals who worried about how the legislation would affect their bottom line was Kirk Goodrich, the president of Monadnock Development, a company that develops affordable and luxury housing across the city. He said he met with senior council aides in November and voiced concerns to them.

“Fundamentally, it creates illiquidity in real estate markets,” Goodrich said of COPA. “It chases investment away.”

Some housing experts had also raised concerns about the scope of the legislation and whether nonprofits are necessarily better equipped to take on more distressed properties.

“There are nonprofit affordable housing owners and operators, great organizations around the city, that today are struggling with the buildings that they have,” said Howard Slatkin, executive director of Citizens Housing and Planning Council. “There are some real, serious financial challenges to subsidize affordable housing.”

Brad Greenburg, the deputy director of NYU’s Furman Center, said the reach of the legislation if enacted was unclear. But he added it would have financial costs.

“Any time you add more legal process to a transaction, it does introduce costs,” Greenburg said. “The question for policymakers is whether the costs are going to outweigh the benefits we end up realizing.”

This story was updated with additional developments.