The Land Use & Zoning Committee of Community Board 5 in Manhattan voted unanimously late last night to recommend that the full board not approve applications for special permits for the development of a mixed-use tower to the west of the Museum of Modern Art designed by Jean Nouvel for Hines Interests.

The full board had voted against the project more than a year ago when it was seeking approval for the transfer of air rights from St. Thomas Episcopal Church and the University Club, both on Fifth Avenue, to its mid-block site between 53rd and 54th Streets. The transfers, however, were subsequently unanimously approved by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission and would enable the planned tower to rise 75 stories and about 1,200.

Since then, the planned tower has increased in size to 82 stories and about 1,250 square feet.

Members of the land use committee generally expressed admiration for the design of the very thin, asymmetric tower but outrage at the museum's relationship with its neighboring community.

Kate McDonough, a member of the committee, for example, said that the museum's policies of dealing with community issues such as traffic on the street, loading docks and sidewalk waiting areas for admission were "crappy."

Many members of the committee expressed dissatisfaction with the draft environmental impact statement released by the Department of City Planning May 18 for the project suggesting that it was too narrowly defined geographically for such an important project, one that would dramatically change the midtown skyline.

When Diane Simpson, the museum's director of visitors, asked to make additional comments, Kevin Finnegan, the committee's chair, adamantly said "No!" adding that the museum had made mistakes in the community that are creating problems for the project, which, he conceded, is a "beautiful building." Mr. Finnegan remarked that while the project may get approved by the City Planning Commission it must still be approved by the City Council and "the most effective way" for that body to negotiate changes is for the committee "to say no!"

When asked by CityRealty.com following the meeting if construction would proceed quickly if all approvals were in place, a spokesman for the developer said "No comment."

Veronika Conant, the president of the West 54-55 Street Block Association, questioned how the Draft Environmental Impact Statement could not address the project's significant increase in exhibition space for the museum - 40,000 square feet - as not contributing to its attendance "when in the previous expansion comparable gallery space resulted in significantly increased attendance from 1.8 million to 2.5 million." She also noted that the proposed building would have about 680,000-square feet of space on its 17,000-square-foot plot, a floor-to-area-ratio of about 38.6 if one does not consider the various "zoning lot mergers" being applied.

Initial plans called for a 100-room "seven-star" hotel, 120 luxury apartment units, and 50,000-square feet of additional exhibit space for the museum.

The current plan has increased the number of apartments to 150 and reduced the additional exhibit space to 40,000.

An article by Nicholas Ouroussoff in the December 19, 2008 edition of The New York Times noted that the skyscraper, then described as 1,155-foot-high, has been "delayed indefinitely." He wrote that "it would also have been one of the most spectacular additions to the Manhattan skyline since the Chrysler Building." Mr. Nouvel is the architect of a recently completed condo project at 40 Wooster Street and of another large and more spectacular project under construction at 100 Eleventh Avenue.