After months of negotiations, and nearly two years after the original bill was introduced, legislation that would require some developers that receive taxpayer subsidies to pay workers a living wage will likely be voted on in the City Council within the next few weeks.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has been working on her own “compromise” version of the bill since January, announced last week that negotiations were complete. The news indicates that movement on the legislation is likely to come soon, as Quinn decides what bills come to floor for a vote, and when.

“This bill was based on a concept of fairness. Businesses that accept significant taxpayer dollars must pay a living wage,” the speaker said in a statement. “Because this bill was modified to only cover direct recipients of financial assistance, we believe it will lift wages without hampering job growth and economic development in New York City.”

Quinn had been tiptoeing around the living wage issue since it was introduced by two Bronx council members in June of 2010. A mayoral hopeful for 2013, she was careful not to anger either side of the argument — the pro-labor groups that supported the bill, and the business and real estate communities that argued it would discourage development.

Quinn’s amended version would require developers receiving substantial taxpayer subsidies to pay employees a so-called “living wage,” or $10 an hour with benefits, $11.50 without. It would not, however, raise the pay for retail workers within these subsidized developments, which had largely been the intent of the original bill and the issue at the heart of the argument that inspired it: the fight for living wages, three years ago, for workers at a shopping mall that was proposed to fill the Kingsbridge Armory.

Even with that concession, Partnership for New York City, which represents many of the city’s business interests, dropped its support for the bill because Quinn rejected a clause that would have allowed the mayor to exempt projects from the wage requirement he or she determined was in the city’s best interest to do so, according to the New York Times.

Mayor Bloomberg, who has opposed the legislation from the beginning, has said he would veto the bill if it should pass in the Council. Quinn would need the vote of 34 council members to override such a veto.