The Council is expected to have a substantial professional staff in a new, influential land-use committee.

To do its job well, in any event, the Council's land-use committee will need a professional staff.

Several members have been quietly lobbying to become chairman of a new land-use committee, which could become a powerful committee.

The issue will now go before the Council's land-use committee, and then before the full Council.

The development corporation's land-use committee favored the other finalist's design chosen from a study project conducted last year.

From 1985 to 1988, he was chairman of Community Board 5 in mid-Manhattan and more recently has headed its land-use committee.

In October the land-use committee tabled its decision on the building to allow coalition members to look for another developer.

Two powerful committees - the budget and land-use committees - are particularly vulnerable to abuse.

He'd insist, he says, that the chairman of the land-use committee do no business with real estate interests.

The matter is to be considered Tuesday by the Council's land-use committee.