Industry leaders say that worsening market conditions have made efforts to preserve affordability more challenging.

“In Ward 1, [an issue] for us is always infill – how do you find smaller pieces of land you can do things in?”

Tenants at the Buena Vista Apartments have been on a rent strike since May 2020. When speculators showed interest in redeveloping their building, they began using the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act to try and purchase it themselves.

The Maryland realtor allegedly bribed a D.C. official and FBI agent to get ahead of other potential buyers for houses and buildings in hot D.C. neighborhoods.

“The opposite ruling would have had the potential to completely gut [TOPA] and render it really close to meaningless,” says one of their attorneys.

They say they should have been given the opportunity to buy it.