Gov. Cuomo gave new meaning to “cap-and-trade” yesterday as he secured a historic agreement on a sweeping cap on upstate and suburban property taxes linked to the renewal of the city’s soon-to-expire rent laws.

The first-ever tax cap would limit property-tax hikes for schools and local government to 2 percent annually, with some limited exceptions, preserving much of a proposal that Cuomo made a focal point of his first five months in office.

Cuomo hailed the legislation — unexpectedly advanced by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), a onetime cap foe — as an economic breakthrough for a state that has hemorrhaged millions of residents as its property taxes ballooned to the highest in the nation.

“This agreement is a big deal,” Cuomo said at a news conference with business groups that for years had pushed for a cap. “When you put the budget together with the property-tax cap in this state, it is going to be a game changer.”

The Cuomo-Silver deal would limit annual tax hikes to 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. But it would allow some exceptions for residential growth and soaring public pension costs, bringing the average hike next year to just under 3 percent.

The deal reached yesterday would forever link the existence of the tax cap, which affects more conservative upstate and suburban communities, to continued renewal of rent regulations for roughly 1 million apartments in the liberal stronghold of New York City.

“These two are inextricably linked in terms of passage in the next three weeks,” Silver said. “The philosophies are the same. Both of these are designed to give people an idea where their costs are going and to keep it affordable for them to continue to live in their homes.”

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