Strategy in Action

Tool: Community and Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Acts (COPA & TOPA)

In 2019, San Francisco instituted the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) to address the city’s residential displacement crisis. When a multi-family or mixed-use building goes up for sale, COPA gives the right of first refusal to “qualified nonprofit organizations” that must keep the residential units permanently affordable as rentals or convert them to a limited-equity co-op. While the law does not require commercial space be kept affordable, nonprofit buyers like the Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) have preserved or created affordable commercial space in these buildings for BIPOC- and immigrant-owned local businesses. MEDA’s work focuses on the Mission District, a longstanding Latinx neighborhood that has been subject to decades-long fights over the displacement of the Latinx community. By preserving small businesses alongside affordable housing, MEDA keeps both residents and community-serving businesses in place. As of 2022, COPA had preserved at least 39 small commercial units within mixed-use buildings across all of the qualified nonprofits.