A major industrial project in the City of Los Angeles has received approval from the city's new Central Area Planning Commission. However, opponents of the "Cornfield" development next to Chinatown have vowed to continue fighting with a variety of legal and political tools. (See CP&DR Economic Development, January 2000) The commission voted 4-2 in late July to approve Majestic Reality's plans for a 950,000-square-foot industrial and warehouse development on 32 acres of the 47-acre Cornfield. The commission also said a mitigated negative declaration was adequate environmental review. Mayor Richard Riordan supported the project because of its potential to bring 1,000 jobs to an economically depressed district. The site is zoned for industrial uses and it lies within enterprise and empowerment zones. But a coalition of environmentalists, civic activists and environmental justice advocates have vowed to fight city and federal subsidies that would clean up the site, which is a former rail yard. And opponents have strongly suggested they will file lawsuits because the city approved the project based on a mitigated negative declaration, and did not consider the project's impact on people of color. The group would like to see a park, a school and mixed-used development on the Cornfield. The neighborhood currently has no park and no middle- or high school. They also note that an archeological dig on the site in April found remnants of the Zanja Madre (mother ditch), which first carried water to the city from the Los Angeles River in 1781.