Gov. David A. Paterson on Monday night signed into law a bill that expands protections for dwellers of lofts in industrial buildings throughout New York City, according to an article by Christine Haughney today at nytimes.com.

The sponsor, Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, who said he had been working on the legislation for two decades, said the law would protect tenants who had been living in loft spaces for at least a year in 2008 and 2009. These tenants will have new protections, like the right to rent stabilization.

"It's a huge political victory," Assemblyman Lopez said. "It's a victory for affordable housing."

Though the bill passed both houses earlier this month, it was opposed by business groups and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who were concerned that it would hurt the city's long shrinking manufacturing industry.

On Monday, Mayor Bloomberg wrote the governor and asked him not to sign the legislation because it would "hurt our economy by driving manufacturers out of New York City."

On Monday night, the legislation was revised and again approved by both houses after Mr. Lopez agreed to exclude 13 of the city's 16 industrial business zones. That means that areas of Sunset Park and Southwest Brooklyn will not fall under the loft law.

Leah Archibald, executive director of the East Williamsburg Valley Industrial Development Corporation, a Brooklyn business coalition, said, however, that the legislation would still drive manufacturing jobs out of East Williamsburg, the article said.

"We really need those working-class jobs," Ms. Archibald declared in the article, adding that "We know this is going to have an overall negative effect on the economy of the neighborhood."

Mayor Bloomberg had indicated he was opposed to a bill extending the Loft Law that protects tenants living in illegally converted industrial buildings and that passed the Senate and the Assembly earlier this month, according to an article yesterday at the realdeal.com by Eliot Brown.

Such a law helped pave the way for the remarkable renaissance of SoHo as an international art center more than a generation ago.

Opposition to the bill put the mayor on the side of landlords, who oppose the measure, which has long been pushed by tenant advocates, the article noted, adding that "This represents one of many pieces of legislation tenant advocates had hoped to see passed by Democrats when they took control of the Senate in 2008, as Republicans had a landlord-friendly agenda on housing issues."

In a letter to the governor sent Monday morning, the city said "As written, this bill would hurt our economy by driving manufacturers out of New York City, reducing the number of good-paying jobs available to New Yorkers at precisely the time we need them the most. The bill would, in effect, prioritize residential occupancy over industrial use wherever they conflict, sending a clear and discouraging message to current and would-be industrial tenants anywhere in the city. It would prevent the City from taking measures to preserve even small islands of industrial businesses, including the city's sixteen Industrial Business Zones, which in the aggregate represent a small geographic portion of the city, but which this legislation treats no differently than the rest of the city, including its most residential neighborhoods. The bill would render those zones meaningless."

The article noted that the Bloomberg Administration has rezoned miles of waterfront in recent years go allow residential buildings to rise in the place of industrial buildings, but added that "Still, the administration has shifted somewhat in the past few years, particularly since the recession, warming more to the concept of preserving industry in New York City."