Berkeley City Council Expected to Reject Measure Giving Tenants Priority to Buy Buildings

The Berkeley City Council is scheduled to vote Monday on a long-debated proposal to give tenants first dibs on buying their building from their landlord, but the council is expected to reject it.

The measure’s primary sponsor, Councilmember Kate Harrison, resigned earlier this year, leaving it without anyone on the council to advocate for it.

Few of the remaining council members appear to be in support. When the legislation went to a policy committee in July, two of the three committee members — Councilmembers Susan Wengraf and Mark Humbert — recommended that the full council reject it. But Councilmember Cecilia Lunaparra, who voted against Wengraf and Humbert in committee, said she plans to revive the proposal if it fails tonight.

The legislation is formally called the Community/Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act or COPA/TOPA. It would allow tenants or a community land trust acting in their interest to make an offer on a building before the landlord puts it on the market. The owner may choose to reject the offer but can receive a tax break if they accept it.

“It’s basically on an honor system,” said Tracy Parent, the director of the Bay Area Community Land Trust, which is one of the groups backing the proposal. “There’s no funding attached to it. So it really is just a law that sellers have to abide by with their realtors, and it’s up to tenants or the community organizations to blow the whistle in the event that we see an instance of noncompliance.”

Parent said Berkeley’s not the first city to consider the idea; San Francisco adopted similar legislation a few years ago, which inspired the coalition’s advocacy.

Property owners and realtors associations oppose the policy, arguing that it adds delay for property owners who are eager to sell. According to the legislation text, the waiting period could be up to six months for a building with 10 or more units. That includes time for the tenants to be notified of the sale and come up with an offer.

“TOPA is an inefficient and expensive approach to promoting tenant home ownership,” said Krista Gulbransen, executive director of the Berkeley Property Owners Association, in a statement. “The legislation complicates and prolongs the sales process for any residential rental property in Berkeley.”

But Parent said the process of selling a tenant-occupied property is already lengthy, and COPA/TOPA is expected to add only an additional two months to the sale process for multi-unit buildings.

Among council members, another point of contention is that the proposal allows tenants themselves to make an offer on their building. Wengraf, who recommended rejecting the proposal, called the name TOPA a “misnomer.”

“It’s very unlikely in this market that tenants, especially low-income tenants, would be able to get a loan to purchase a multi-unit property,” she said. “I see that as aspirational, but I don’t see it as practical.”

But Harrison and other advocates believe that it’s important to include anyway — even if it’s an unlikely scenario. And though she’s no longer on the council, she said they should continue discussing the issue in committee.

“I don’t think it should be passed right this second,” Harrison said. “I think it needed to have real hearings. I find this whole situation like it’s a ‘Yes/No’ question very frustrating.”