Bowser Lambastes D.C. Council For 'Diluting' TOPA Reform Bill

The sweeping reforms to D.C. housing laws that Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed appear to be in jeopardy. 

The D.C. Council's Committee on Housing has made a series of changes to the mayor's Rental Act after holding a marathon hearing in late May, and now Bowser is speaking out against its revisions. 

In a letter to committee Chair Robert White — which Deputy Mayor Nina Albert posted on social media Thursday morning — Bowser said she is "strongly opposed" to several of the edits the committee has proposed in its latest version of the bill.

A spokesperson declined to say whether the mayor would veto the committee's current version of the bill if it were to pass the council. The legislation is still subject to additional changes before the council votes on it, and the committee is scheduled to hold a markup on the bill on Wednesday. 

Bowser's concerns center around proposed changes to the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, a longstanding law that gives tenants the ability to delay or block the sale of their buildings, and to the city's eviction process. 

Bowser's Rental Act proposal would exempt buildings from TOPA for the first 25 years after their construction, or after they receive "substantial improvements." She proposed exempting buildings with income-restriction covenants, leaving the law limited only to older, market-rate buildings, which typically represent naturally occurring affordable housing.

The committee's version of the bill would exempt buildings for 15 years after they are built. White proposed the 15-year exemption himself, and the differences between those timelines became a key point of debate at the May hearing. 

Bowser wrote in the letter that the 25-year window better reflects the life cycle of a building, and she said most examples of TOPA being used have been for buildings constructed before 1978. 

"Now is not the time for tweaks to TOPA; it is the time for reform," Bowser wrote.

In an emailed response to Bowser's letter, which a White spokesperson shared with Bisnow, the council member pushed back on that specific line. 

"I want to be clear: a 15-year TOPA exemption is not a minor tweak," White wrote. "It’s a substantial policy shift, informed directly by significant feedback from industry stakeholders who are deeply invested in the District’s housing future."

The two leaders also butted heads over proposed changes to the city's eviction process. 

Bowser proposed in the Rental Act to set a series of deadlines that courts would be required to meet to accelerate the process of evicting nonpaying tenants. This came in response to housing providers facing financial distress due to tenants racking up millions of dollars in unpaid rent while delaying evictions. 

The District has taken one step to address that problem by reforming the Emergency Rental Assistance Program to remove a loophole that tenants had used to delay eviction, a bill the council passed in May and Bowser signed into law.

Bowser's Rental Act proposal sought to further shorten eviction timelines, in part by reducing eviction notice periods from 30 days to 10 days and mandating that hearings be held within 30 to 45 days. The committee's version of the bill removed these provisions. 

In her letter, Bowser said the committee's version of the bill "fails to address critical court timelines" by "weakening or removing" the reforms she had proposed. 

"The primary concern that DC must address in its housing marketplace is increasing economic vacancy as the result of tenants not paying rent," Bowser wrote, adding that the committee's version wouldn't resolve this problem. 

In White's response to the letter, the council member said he has spoken directly with the judges who handle D.C. eviction cases. 

"They made it clear that they are not in a position to enforce those timelines," White said. "That means this component of the law is effectively performative."

The mayor and the committee chairman are also battling on the messaging around the bill.

Bowser ended her letter by saying, "This is not the time for half-measures," and urging White to advance her proposal "without diluting these critical provisions." White pushed back against the framing that his committee is diluting the bill.

"Mischaracterizations like this are unproductive," he wrote. "They not only misinform stakeholders but also risk undermining our collective work to restore trust in the District’s housing system."