Developers and housing advocates press D.C. Council to modernize TOPA, fix courts amid foreclosure crisis

At an oversight roundtable of the Committee on Business and Economic Development on March 12, 2025, developers, housing providers and nonprofit advocates urged the D.C. Council to modernize the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, speed entitlement decisions and reform landlord-tenant court procedures to restore investor confidence and protect committed affordable housing.

The testimony came as the District confronts a shifting federal landscape and a downward revenue outlook: Council Chair Kenya McDuffie noted the Chief Financial Officer’s February 2025 forecast projecting an average annual revenue decline of $342,000,000 from fiscal 2026 through 2028 and observed that the city’s reserves equal about 52 days of operating capital. Witnesses said those pressures magnify risks to both market-rate and subsidized housing.

Why this matters: panelists said court delays, pandemic-era tenant protections and layered local regulations have increased costs for owners and lenders, driving away institutional capital and putting mission-driven affordable properties at risk of foreclosure. Housing Association of Nonprofit Developers Executive Director Courtney Battle told the committee “the foreclosure crisis is massive and affects the entire affordable housing industry in the District,” and provided DHCD figures that about 22,000 government-subsidized units — housing roughly 48,000 residents — are at risk.

Developers pushing TOPA reform and regulatory relief

Local developers and capital-market specialists urged changes they said would restore liquidity and accelerate production. Jair Lynch, president and CEO of Jair Lynch Real Estate Partners and a member of the developer roundtable, told the committee that the District needs…