More and more residents are becoming aware of the drastic and harmful TOPA proposal. MANY CONCERNED RESIDENTS AND VOLUNTEERS ARE BANDING TOGETHER, TAKING ACTION, AND SPREADING THE WORD.

1. Contact city council

2. Speak at open forum

3. Sign the petition

How TOPA affects all local residents, whether you are a tenant, looking to buy, already a homeowner, a small housing provider, or a dedicated city staff member:

The Oakland and Berkeley City Councils are currently considering a radical ordinance called TOPA (Tenant’s Opportunity to Purchase Act). It’s being sold as a way to prevent displacement and promote ownership opportunities for tenants; but in reality the ordinance will not create opportunity for any of our residents. It uses our underprivileged as a front to grant government the power to dictate how properties are sold, to whom they can be sold, and even how much they can be sold for. The text of the ordinance is being withheld in Oakland from the public by its authors, yet all indications point to the legislation being similar, if not identical to, the defeated Richmond TOPA ordinance after overwhelming non-partisan opposition. You can also read the Berkeley TOPA proposal here.

RENTERS HOPING TO BUY:

For residents looking to buy and own a home, does buying a TOPA property that the city controls but you have to pay for sound good to you? It would essentially remove all the financial benefits of true ownership like building equity and having supplement income but leaves you with all the responsibilities.

How is that worthwhile if you have all the financial obligations and constant maintenance headaches but you can not even save monthly for a rainy day or build up a retirement nest egg? Under TOPA, the city would place forced deed restrictions on your home, meaning you would be forced to sell your home at essentially the same price you’ve bought it for. If your home needs a $20,000 roof or any other upkeep, you would have to spend that money and can not recoup it years later when you sell. More over, you would be responsible for a mortgage, paying interest to the bank with no upside when you sell after years of weekend maintenance work.

So it would be just like renting but with all the legal liabilities and work that comes with owning a home. And if you buy a duplex or triplex and have tenants, you would be forced to collect lower than market rent with allowable increases that does not keep up with inflation, and would be constantly responsible for out of pocket costs, taxes, onerous city regulations, and time consuming maintenance issues.

TENTANTS:

Renting in a building with TOPA restrictions, tenants would be stuck living in a dilapidated building when owners cannot afford to maintain the building under TOPA. The TOPA restriction limiting rent levels would make it difficult to cover monthly building expenses and maintain it in a habitable condition. If 42% of residential housing would be affected by this TOPA proposal in our cities, as is estimated in Berkeley, then we would end up with dilapidated city blocks, attracting crime and killing local neighborhood businesses.

 
 
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How would you feel if the sale price of your home or private property was dictated by a “city approved” appraiser, which would happen under TOPA?

HOMEOWNERS/PROPERTY OWNERS:

For owners, the forced deed restrictions create a hinderance that would drastically drop property value. Unlike the false narrative, many owners are not outside, corporations but regular residents who poured their life savings into a building and invested in our local community, spending weekends to fix up old buildings. With the forced deed restrictions, these residents could be out hundreds of thousands of dollars and be bereft of the means to care for themselves in retirement.

Additionally, the time delay of up to 339+ days or in some cases even more would kill property sales, which is especially detrimental for those who need to quickly sell for medical emergencies and could cost lives. The time delay would also put an end to 1031 exchanges and interfere with the free market process with adverse consequences.

CITY STAFF AND SERVICES:

Our current massive city budget shortfalls threaten not only essential city services but also existing jobs for many dedicated city staff. Oakland is looking at a historic $122 million dollar deficit while Berkeley is facing a $30 million dollar deficit. During the financial crisis Oakland had to lay off 1500 city staff, many of whom lost their homes, lost their ability to send their kids to school, and some even committed suicide.

For the city, TOPA means drastically reduced revenue from lowered transfer taxes, as buildings with deed restrictions will now be worth hundreds of thousands less. Lower property value also means lower property tax revenue for the county and city. TOPA’s interference at the point of sale and open market pricing, will also result in fewer numbers of transactions as most residents would be hurt by selling at a drastic loss, killing city revenue even more. There is a whole entire local economy tied to city revenue with multiple weak links that will quickly unravel. While facing reduced revenue streams, the city will also be faced with defending expensive lawsuits for infringing on property rights, privacy rights, and basic constitutional rights. The TOPA component allowing a city appraiser to set property sales price is hugely problematic legally, as is the forced deed restrictions components placed on properties.

Special interest groups are lobbying Berkeley and Oakland for at least $10-15 million annually from the city to prop up TOPA, which is so bureaucratic it would require creating an entire city department, hiring full time staff and lawyers, and instigating a negotiation team and an enforcement team to administer voluminous red tape.

This is detrimental to our residents at anytime but especially so now during our COVID-19 health crisis and the resulting city budget deficit.

TOPA would be taking money away from much more effective and efficient housing programs as well as funding from existing critical senior and homeless projects. In fact, after 40 years, WashingtonDC relies on many alternative housing solutions rather than TOPA and considered zeroing out funding for TOPA as well as passing legislation to unwind TOPA in 2018.

 
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TOPA claims to help tenants purchase homes but is hugely problematic, ineffective and does harm to our entire community along the way. We can more efficiently help tenants purchase homes without TOPA with other more effective approaches such as direct downpayment assistance to tenants to promote homeownership, waive home purchase transfer tax for tenants, provide credit counseling and loan assistance for tenants etc. Washington DC wisely recognize which affordable housing programs are more effective and funds them accordingly, and so should our local cities.

This TOPA ordinance is not a progressive way to promote ownership opportunities for existing tenants, it's a blatant attempt to seize private property through a coercive set of regulations. We can not let this action by the city council fly under the radar, that is why it's imperative we contact each of the Oakland or Berkeley city council members, speak at public forum, and sign the petition to express our opposition to this proposal, and demand alternative methods to be developed amongst all stakeholders.