And this might be the moment to act. "Because there's so little development, it's probably a terrific time to redo the Zoning Resolution," said Robert F. Wagner Jr., a former chairman of the Planning Commission, at a well-attended planning and zoning symposium held on Jan. 30.

Free from the pressures posed by intense construction, planners have the chance to chart a fresh course in zoning, instead of incessantly fine-tuning a document that took effect 31 years ago, when New York was a much different city, before communities were given a formal role in land-use review. Indeed, under the new Charter, the planning agency must prepare a comprehensive planning and zoning report every four years. The first is due in December and might form the germ of a new zoning ordinance.

However, the same economic paralysis that theoretically would free planners for such a big task has also devastated the City Planning Department, whose full-time staff has been cut 25 percent since 1990. Moreover, the environmental reviews that have been instituted since the 1961 Zoning Resolution might make it financially and logistically impossible to embark on citywide zoning. An environmental-impact statement for a single project can take years to produce and cost millions of dollars.

Perhaps the most basic reason the Zoning Resolution may never be fundamentally rewritten is the lack of political will to do so. If zoning is the regulatory tool by which a comprehensive plan is shaped, some broadly held vision of New York's future would be a necessary precursor to a thoroughly revised ordinance. It is hard to imagine such a consensus' being developed when specific issues like shelters for the homeless and garbage incinerators have proved so divisive.

YET there seems to be widespread agreement that something ought to be done. Few are content with the current zoning ordinance, a cumbersome, bloated, 835-page patchwork that can be navigated only by a handful of specialists, leaving everyone else -- developers, architects, community leaders and neighbors -- at a baffled disadvantage.