Hines Interests was reported yesterday to be planning a redesign of its controversial, mixed-use tower just to the west of the Museum of Modern Art after the land-use and the zoning and franchise subcommittees of the City Council voted to uphold a 200-foot lowering of its height last month by the City Planning Commission.

By acquiring air rights on the block from the University Club and St. Thomas Episcopal Church, the developer had planned a 1,250-foot-high slanted mid-block tower with about 120 luxury hotel rooms, 150 residential condominiums and about 50,000 square feet of expansion for the famous museum. The developer could have built a 1,050-foot-high tower on the narrow slight "as-of-right."

Neighbors opposed the tower and even took out television ads this week attacking the plan.

In reducing its height by 200 feet last month, Amanda Burden, the chair of the City Planning Commission, according to article in New York Times by Nicholai Ourossoff, argued the "tower's top, which culminates in three uneven peaks, did not meet the aesthetic standards of a building that would compete in height with the city's most famous towers." He said that Ms. Burden said that the project "had to show us that they were creating something as great or even greater than the Empire State Building and the design they showed us was unresolved.'" Citing its "elegant proportions," Mr. Ourossoff wrote that "seen from the street, its receding facades would have induced a delicious sense of vertigo."

The council's land use committee yesterday approved the commission's reduction in height by a vote of 12 to 2, according to an article yesterday by Lee Rosenbaum in her "Culture Grrl" column at artsjournal.com, and now the developer must return to the commission and then appear for a vote by the full council October 29.

'As luck would have it," Ms. Rosenbaum wrote, "Michael Sillerman, attorney for the project, sat down next to me in the meeting room. So I asked him after the vote if the project would go forward under the conditions approved today by the Committee (which still have to go back to the CPC, and then back again to City Hall for a vote by the full Council). His answer was, 'Yes.'"

"The Council members and the developer hammered," she continued, "out a plan for the Jean Nouvel-designed tower to have less than 100,000 square feet of hotel space. This would mean that the tower would not be legally required to have a loading dock with curb cut - a concession to neighborhood opponents who are concerned about increased activity on their street. The Museum of Modern Art's space on the new building's lower floors would remain the same - about 52,000 square feet, connected seamlessly to the existing galleries."

Ms. Rosenbaum's article said that Mr. Sillverman told her after the meeting that the agreement would make the maximium footage 658,000 square feet, "the same amount that was to have been encompassed by the proposed (now shortened) 1,250-foot-high building."

"Since this could mean squashing the same floor area into a shorter building, I asked Sillerman if the slender structure would grow fatter, or whether ceiling height would be reduced. He could only say that a significant redesign would now ensue, and he didn't yet know what exactly that would entail or what the actual square footage total would turn out to be. He assured me that architect Jean Nouvel is on the case."

Yesterday Ms. Rosenbaum reported that the committee's actions would "mean a loss of 16 stories for the 85-story planned tower, adding that "even if it got governmental approval, it would not start any time soon," and that architect Jean Nouvel had unveiled "a new proposal for the top including "reflective fins."

With its asymmetrical massing and robust angular bracing, the design promised to be a very prominent major new tower that would have been the tallest building in Manhattan north of the Empire State Building.