Since 1993, state law has allowed landlords to convert vacant regulated apartments into market-rate units when their rents hit $2,000 a month, but The Real Estate Board of New York, a major landlord group, "is signaling openness to hiking the limit," according to an article by Eliot Brown in today's edition of The Wall Street Journal.

As legislators in Albany debate the future of the city's rent laws, the article said that "a key provision of the law that has allowed landlords to deregulate at least 100,000 apartments may be up for a change."

"We are prepared to look at a higher number," Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, a powerful lobbying group, said in an interview last week, adding that "it depends what the rest of the package is."

"Over the years," the article continued, "the real-estate industry has strenuously resisted efforts by renters' advocacy groups to increase that amount. The battle has been renewed with rent regulations up for renewal for the first time since 2003. Only now, the dynamic appears to be changing....Rent laws, which limit the ability of landlords to increase rents for about 1 million apartments citywide, sunset in June. If they're not renewed, landlords of these units will be able to raise their rents to market rates."

With Gov. Andrew Cuomo saying he supports rent regulation in some form, the article said that "all sides in the debate have focused on how to extend the laws," adding that "The extension of rent control also has become one of the bargaining chips in the broader battle in Albany over the budget. Democrats have pushed Mr. Cuomo to deal with the rent issue now, seeking to tie it to a property-tax cap favored by Republicans."

The real-estate industry cares deeply about the so-called vacancy decontrol provision with the $2,000 limit, given that a deregulated apartment can bring in thousands in additional revenue each year, the article said, adding that "the deregulation limit could still stay the same given that some advocacy groups from both the tenant and landlord worlds resist any change" and that "there are also countless other provisions under discussion, according to people involved, including a push by tenants to add oversight and change formulas to slow deregulation. There's also an effort by the real-estate industry to reverse some recent judicial decisions with legislation."

Rent-regulation advocates have "pushed to change crucial formulas that allow landlords who invest in renovations on vacant apartments to deregulate when the rent is less than $2,000," the article said, adding that "without changes to those formulas, the advocates say, an increase in the $2,000 limit would not have great effect."

"With the population and property values rising, the number of apartments affordable to low- and middle-income New Yorkers has fallen in the past decade," the article said, "and many housing advocacy groups have looked to maintaining the rent stabilization stock as a means of keeping affordability."