Monday, July 6, 2026

LA County to Consider Giving Nonprofits First Crack at Altadena-Area Apartment Sales

Screenshot from latest Los Angeles County Board Meeting on June 30, 2026, via YouTube.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is set to consider a proposal that would explore giving nonprofit housing organizations the first opportunity to buy apartment buildings and mobile home parks in unincorporated communities, including Altadena, before those properties reach the open market.

The measure, Item 4 on the board’s July 7 agenda, would direct county departments to return within 180 days with a recommended Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, or COPA, ordinance. Because Altadena is an unincorporated community governed directly by the county, any such ordinance would apply there, potentially changing how apartment buildings and mobile home parks are bought and sold.

Under the framework the motion lays out, the county would explore giving qualified mission-driven purchasers — such as community land trusts and nonprofit developers — a Right of First Offer and a Right of First Refusal on covered properties, along with a method for determining fair-market offers. The program would apply to residential properties with five or more units and to mobile home parks. The county would also build a platform to register properties and track sales, and a process to certify eligible nonprofit buyers. The motion describes COPA as a first, phased step that could later be paired with a Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, or TOPA.

County data cited in the motion indicate that of roughly 293,000 housing units in unincorporated areas, about 110,000 — 38 percent — are renter-occupied, and that the county’s rent registry lists 86 mobile home parks and 9,041 mobile home spaces.

The motion argues the county needs the program because rents have outpaced incomes and displacement pressures fall unevenly. It cites a 2024 UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute study finding that more than half of Los Angeles County renters were rent-burdened in 2023, with Black and Latino households bearing the highest rates.

It also points to a Los Angeles Housing Department analysis, drawing on research by Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, that corporations and trusts owned about 47 percent of rental properties in the city of Los Angeles as of 2018, including 82 percent of buildings with 50 or more units. Without policy intervention, the motion states, existing renters face potential displacement risks as housing costs keep rising.

The motion was authored by Board Chair Hilda L. Solis and Chair Pro Tem Holly J. Mitchell, and advanced by the board’s Homelessness and Housing Cluster on June 25.

It also directs a written reassessment of the county’s 2023 tenant-purchase study within 120 days and a report on potential funding sources within 180 days — a report meant to weigh tools such as the county’s Housing Innovation Fund II and first-time-homebuyer assistance programs.

The motion further grants the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs authority to hire consultants for the work, waiving a standard county contracting rule, Board Policy No. 5.100. Altadena lies in the Fifth District, represented by Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who was not among the motion’s authors.

The California Apartment Association, which represents rental-property owners, opposes the proposal and has urged members to contact their supervisors before the vote. In a public advocacy post, the association said the program would grant qualified groups preferential rights to purchase certain rental properties before they reach the open market.

If the board approves the plan and directs the work to proceed, county departments would report back over the following four to six months, and any COPA ordinance would return to the board for a separate vote before it could take effect.