• Support the creation of community owned and controlled cooperative hubs across the five boroughs that could anchor the existing local worker cooperatives while serving the community at large as centers of information and cooperative development for new entrepreneurs.  These centers would provide services tailored to the needs of worker cooperatives, distinct from other city-supported small business solutions centers, and ideally organized through a commercial CLT model.

• Support the integration between Community-owned businesses and Community-controlled land as part of an effort to democratize economic development. As articulated by the NYC Community Land Initiative (NYCCLI):

  • Direct land, housing and subsidy to CLTs. Public land and subsidies must be reserved for CLTs and other forms of social housing that reach deep and permanent affordability, and provide for meaningful tenant and community control. Public land must be used for public good.

  • Pass Opportunity to Purchase legislation at the City level, to provide a right of first refusal to tenants, CLTs, and affordable housing providers when landlords sell property.

• End the private warehousing of vacant properties** and the private sale of tax liens ***— and channel properties to CLTs and nonprofit developers for long-term preservation.

• Support strong commercial rent stabilization legislation that includes mechanisms for enforcement and fair criteria for limits on rent increases across the city to counteract displacement and gentrification. Work with United for Small Business NYC (USBNYC) and other coalition partners for the inclusion of these demands within Intro 1796 and to hold a hearing as soon as possible to address the wave of speculation anticipated as a response to the pandemic

• Cancel commercial rents for small businesses and worker cooperatives during COVID-19.

**Private warehousing is used here to mean ability for landlords to keep rent-regulated properties vacant while they find ways to make them unregulated

***Through NYC's lien sale, NYC sells overdue property tax and other municipal debts in bulk to an investor-backed trust. The trust tacks on high interest rates and fees, pushing financially-strapped property owners into further distress, and can foreclose on properties. The lien sale, initiated by the Giuliani administration, disproportionately harms and siphons wealth from Black and brown homeowners and neighborhoods. An analysis from the Coalition for Affordable Homes found that the City was six times more likely to sell liens on one-to-three family homes in majority Black neighborhoods, and twice as likely to sell liens in majority Latinx neighborhoods, than in majority white neighborhoods.