Housing

New York City Council pushes affordable housing package

Several bills are in the Community Land Act, including two that prioritize nonprofits in housing development.

With over half of New York City tenants spending nearly a third of their income on rent, affordable housing is crucial to ensuring a safe future for New Yorkers. That’s why advocates in have rallied and thrown their support behind the Community Land Act, a package of bills before the New York City Council that would provide nonprofits and community land trusts with the resources to develop permanently affordable housing. Community land trusts hold land under community control, thus guaranteeing the community derives benefits from it. Spearheading this campaign is the NYC Community Land Initiative, a coalition of housing organizations trying to expand social housing. 

The Community Land Act includes several bills, including two that prioritize nonprofits in housing development. The Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, sponsored by Council Member Carlina Rivera, would allow CLTs and nonprofits a first right to buy property when up for sale. COPA would not only offer relief to nonprofits in an otherwise competitive real estate market, but prevent private equity firms and prominent investors from flipping property or charging astronomical rates. 

The Public Land for Public Good bill, sponsored by Council Member Lincoln Restler, would require the city to prioritize CLTs and nonprofit developers when disposing of land. Like COPA, this bill would allow communities a chance to purchase land to serve as a public good. 

Both pieces of legislation are just a few votes away from having a veto proof supermajority, with 31 co-sponsors for COPA and 33 co-sponsors for the Public Land for Public Good bill. Restler even expressed confidence that a simple majority would be supportive of the bills. 

Reflecting on final efforts to push for the act’s passage, he mentions “engaging with stakeholders around the legislation and hoping to make some final tweaks to the bill to get it over the finish line. There's a tremendous coalition of advocates that have been leading the way on community land acts, and we're working closely with them to build momentum.” 

Among these advocates is New Economy Project, an organization dedicated to creating equitable economic institutions that has spent the last few months campaigning for the act to ensure its passage. 

“We want to make sure that before council members have to turn their attention to their reelection bids, we get this out of committee and brought to the city council for a vote,” Spisak, senior program associate at New Economy Project, said. 

He emphasized that the Community Land Act lays the groundwork for potential growth of New York’s affordable housing landscape. 

“We've really been laying it on thick to make sure that community land trusts are not just in the conversation, but are the conversation. The Community Land Act is an essential piece of supporting community land trusts because without some kind of intervention, it's hard to insert CLTs in this very hyper competitive New York City real estate market.”

Will Depoo, senior campaign organizer at the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development, added that the importance of community-led discussions surrounding social housing. 

“Who's in the room when developing housing is being discussed? For us, it's very important to think about, ‘how do we ensure folks who have been doing the work and have a vision for community ownership are working together to be able to keep folks in their homes and to thrive in their communities?’”

Restler, whose past experience working at nonprofits informed his bill, invokes similar sentiments to Depoo. 

“It’s the neighborhood nonprofit organizations who we need to invest in and support because they're integral to working class New Yorkers continuing to be able to call their neighborhoods home.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.