DOPA: the District Opportunity to Purchase Act.
It has been designed to promote Rental housing affordability in DC. DOPA helps with affordability by helping maintain the current number of affordable rental housing in DC as well as increase it.
DOPA applies to properties of 5 rental units and more with at least 25% of the units designated as affordable units . It shares a bit of similarities with TOPA ( tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act). Let’s note that DOPA is subordinate to TOPA. Therefore, the tenants or tenant’s association will have the opportunity to exercise their rights first. In the event that the tenants are either unable to or elect not to exercise their rights, then the District is provided with the opportunity to exercise its right to purchase the proposed property.
The District can elect to assign its right to purchase to a developer within a pool developers already pre-approved by the district. By doing so, the District plan on instauring rigid requirements that must be followed by developers looking to be assigned the opportunity to purchase.
