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Student co-ops, land trusts and nonprofit advocates push council to preserve community ownership
Summary
The Berkeley Student Cooperative, community land trusts and nonprofit affordable-housing groups urged the council to pursue policies that give residents and mission-driven nonprofits a chance to acquire buildings before investors do.
Student cooperatives and community land trusts described TOPA and COPPA as tools to expand community ownership and preserve long-term affordability. Xin, the Berkeley Student Cooperative president, said the BSC stands "in solidarity with tenants across the Bay Area" and described cooperative acquisition as a path for collective ownership.
Speakers from the Bay Area Community Land Trust, Enterprise Community Partners and other nonprofit partners stressed that nonprofit acquisitions take time because they require layered financing. Tracy Parent of the Bay Area CLT and others said a COPPA or TOPA process that gives nonprofits time to assemble financing would make Berkeley’s $10,000,000 Small Sites commitment more useful for preserving naturally occurring affordable housing.
Nonprofit supporters argued that structured notice and a reasonable timeline for nonprofit offers would prevent out-of-town speculative buyers from making offers that lock tenants out of acquisition opportunities. Several asked the city to study a COPPA-style model designed to funnel acquisition opportunities to mission-driven buyers and to explore requirements that nonprofits make bona fide cooperative offers within a set time after purchase.
