You Will Own Nothing And Like It

Ownership on a Timer Is Not Ownership

New York City’s Community Opportunity to Purchase Act does not seize property. It does something more subtle and corrosive. It redefines what ownership means.

COPA tells property owners that the right to sell is no longer theirs alone. It belongs to the city first. It belongs to regulators who decide when a sale may proceed, to whom it may proceed, and under what conditions it may proceed. Sure, the owner keeps the title, but the city controls the exit.

That is not a housing policy tweak.
That is a redefinition of property rights.

Rights Do Not End at the Deed

Property rights do not stop at possession. They include the right to alienate, the right to negotiate freely, and the right to exit without government approval. COPA suspends those rights by law.

Once an owner signals an intent to sell, the market freezes. For weeks, then months, the owner may not sell to willing private buyers. The city built in impedance. It compels disclosure. It mandates deference to a preferred class of purchasers.

The law does not ask or suggest. It demands.

Supporters insist that no one forces a sale. That misses the point. A right delayed by force is a right denied by design. When the government decides when you may sell, how you may sell, and who gets first claim on your time and leverage, ownership becomes conditional.

A Legal Distinction Without a Moral Difference

Defenders of COPA hide behind technicalities. The law does not set prices. It does not mandate acceptance of an offer. It does not transfer title outright.

None of that addresses the core issue.

COPA restrains alienation through statute. It demands compliance through penalties and agency oversight. It inserts government into private negotiations and compels disclosure of lawful offers. The owner remains nominally free, but only after navigating a city-controlled process designed to favor one class of buyer over all others.

Courts have long recognized that the government does not need to confiscate property to chill constitutional rights. Conditioning and delay can achieve the same result without triggering the same scrutiny. COPA relies on that distinction. Owners suffer the consequences despite the law stopping short of calling it a seizure.

Markets Do Not Ignore Friction

Markets respond to incentives and constraints, not slogans.

COPA injects friction at the most sensitive moment in a transaction. It creates timeline uncertainty. It weakens negotiating leverage and exposes private offers to government review. Buyers hesitate. Sellers lose options. Deals change shape or disappear entirely.

Even when a nonprofit never exercises its newly established “rights,” the damage is done. Time kills deals. Uncertainty drives capital elsewhere. Maintenance gets deferred. Housing stock deteriorates. Tenants absorb the consequences while the city normalizes the erosion of property rights.

A policy that must slow the market to function exposes its own failure.

The Pattern Is Already Clear

New York did not invent this framework.

Washington, DC went further, granting tenants sweeping purchase and assignment rights. The result was chaos, litigation, and repeated legislative rollbacks. San Francisco narrowed its approach by limiting participation to nonprofits and tightening timelines to reduce the damage.

New York followed San Francisco’s structure, but expanded government discretion. It lengthened mandatory delays, broadened disclosure requirements, and granted extension authority without imposing a firm cap. The city avoided DC’s chaos but doubled down on control.

The lesson from both cities is the same. Once the government conditions the right to sell, the first condition is never the last.

COPA Defense Fails on Contact

Supporters describe COPA as merely a pause. Just a process. A chance for nonprofits to compete.

Rights that exist only after government approval are not rights. They are privileges administered by bureaucrats on schedules that owners do not control. If the policy were harmless, it would not need to compel participation or freeze lawful sales. The coercion is the policy.

What New York Has Chosen

New York City did not abolish private property. It redefined it.

Ownership now comes with mandatory waiting periods, forced disclosures, and government-preferred buyers standing between seller and market.

That may be legal.
It may even be popular.
But it is not liberty.

A city that must slow people down to keep them from selling should ask itself why so many want to leave.

Earl “Big E” Jackson is the host of The Mission Ready Men Briefing, a conservative commentary series where conviction meets culture.
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