ALBANY-As today marks the last day of New York’s Legislative session, negotiations surrounding the state’s now-expired rent regulation laws are slowly coming to a head. Albany lawmakers, regulators and commercial real estate organizations are coming to a consensus about what they would like to see in the new bill, which could include provisions to protect tax incentives to developers.

Steve Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, the state’s first real estate trade association in the state, tells GlobeSt.com that REBNY would support extending the state’s rent regulation laws if the package includes several criteria, such as the protection of 421-A, a tax incentive program implemented in the early 1970s to spur development in the five boroughs, as well as the continuation of J-51, another tax incentive program that provides as-of-right tax exemption and abatement for residential rehabilitation or conversions.

“There are a lot of issues that affect housing in the city of New York and we are prepared to consider what the full package is as it relates to rent regulations,” Spinola says. “On the other hand, we have a million or two million people who believe that their homes are in jeopardy. But we think that in the end that if we can come up with a housing program that includes rent regulations, J-51 and 421-A, then that’s the deal we would hope our legislators could figure out to accomplish.”