Affordable Housing? Bill Designed to Give New Leverage to Tenants and Nonprofit Housing Groups Moves Forward

By Phyllis Eckhaus

“Whose land? Our land!” shouted a boisterous crowd of tenant leaders and organizers, as they rallied on the steps of City Hall on April 11, urging the city council to move ahead with the Community Land Act (CLA). This package of bills is designed to promote deeply affordable housing by giving nonprofit groups, community land trusts and tenants first dibs on up-for-sale multi-family buildings and city-owned land.

Will Spisak, senior program associate with The New Economy Project, explained to The Village View, “We have an affordable housing crisis, driven by real estate speculation. And so much of what passes for ‘affordable housing’ today, built by for-profit real estate developers, is way too pricey for everyday working New Yorkers.” He described the CLA as the most promising way ahead, “Truly affordable housing,” requires going “beyond market-driven, band-aid solutions.”

He also reported “great news”—the day after the rally, the previously-stalled CLA was finally scheduled for a June hearing before the city council housing committee. This is the prerequisite to the full council voting on the CLA in the fall, making passage possible before a newly elected council takes office in 2026.

A majority of the current council is on record as supporting the CLA, and Spisak expressed hope there may even be a two-thirds majority, which could override a potential veto by the mayor.

Widespread Support

At the rally, lead sponsor Council Member Carlina Rivera noted that corporations own 89 percent of New York City rental housing and “we want to level the playing field” by making sure real estate properties are treated as “more than commodities…. we want to ensure we stop losing our neighbors… and protect the city’s diversity.”

Council Member Shaun Abreu, a former tenants’ rights lawyer who was once “a kid from uptown getting evicted from his home,” said, “I’m here to tell you the Community Land Act is possible.” He noted a plentitude of potential properties: “In Manhattan alone, we have 243 abandoned buildings, 267 empty lots, and 179 parking lots, most of which are empty or underused.”

“Private developers are focused on making money,” Council Member Lincoln Restler observed, declaring that, left to themselves, private developers “are never going to develop truly affordable housing.” Restler, a lead CLA sponsor, characterized the Act as a way to harvest “the lowest of low-hanging fruit” by ensuring that “public land, when redeveloped, is going to create a 100 percent permanently affordable housing.”

He condemned current plans in his district, where the Metropolitan Transit Authority seeks to turn “the largest publicly-owned land in all of Greenpoint into 80 percent luxury housing. When public land is being redeveloped, it better damn be for public good.”

Nicholas Latimer, a Hell’s Kitchen tenant leader at 438/440 West 45th Street, described years of landlord abuse, including no heat or hot water, vandalized mailboxes and unhoused people sleeping in the lobby. He recounted how tenants organized an 18 month rent strike, after which their landlord—twice named the city’s worst—lost the two buildings to foreclosure, and tenants secured 100 percent abatement on back rent.

With these buildings now up for sale, Latimer spoke out against “greedy landlords and overzealous developers [trying] to force us out of our homes to make way for luxury housing.” He asserted tenants’ rights to bid on their own buildings: “To those landlords and developers, we say we can maintain our homes better than they can. We have invested more than just money. We have invested our lives.”

A Package with Potential

The CLA legislative package includes the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA), which would give community land trusts and other nonprofits a first right to purchase multifamily buildings when landlords sell. The Public Land for Public Good Act would require the city to prioritize community land trusts and other nonprofits in the disposition of public land while Resolution 374 calls on New York State to enact the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, a bill facilitating tenant purchase of up-for-sale buildings.

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are community-controlled nonprofit organizations that steward land for the public good. In New York City, about 20 CLTs are working to combat displacement, develop and preserve deeply affordable housing, and advance neighborhood-led development.

In the East Village, there are two CLTs organized by the Cooper Square Committee. The Cooper Square Committee Community Land Trust, founded 30 years ago, helps steward some 400 housing units for low and extremely-low income families.

The CLA has immediate relevance to the Village, observed Valerio Orselli, executive director of the This Land Is Ours Community Land Trust, the newer CLT organized by the Cooper Square Committee. He noted that there’s a prized East 5th Street police parking lot that his group wants to turn into low-income housing for seniors and people with disabilities—and that this opportunity could be lost without the CLA. Despite strong community and community board support for the land trust’s plan, the city wants to solicit proposals from private developers.

Other cities have passed laws similar to the CLA. Since 2020 the San Francisco version has preserved 230 affordable homes and 13 commercial spaces for local businesses. It has also established transparency in the real estate market, making it easier to organize tenants, fight speculation, and hold landlords accountable.