Despite a strong showing of local support, Downtown Crossing — New Haven’s biggest construction project in half a century — hit a legislative snag at a public hearing Thursday as aldermen voted to send the proposal back to the City Plan Commission for reworking.

Members of the Board of Aldermen’s joint finance and legislation committee held a public hearing Thursday evening to discuss the $135 million project, which would replace sections of Route 34 with urban boulevards and erect a 10-story, 225,000-square-foot medical office tower in the cleared space.

Local business leaders, education officials and community activists voiced strong support for the proposed zoning changes and land disposition agreement under review at the meeting. But ultimately, rather than voting on the legislative package and passing it on for a critical vote by the full Board, committee members decided to send the project back to the City Plan Commission after public testimony questioning the development’s effect on local neighborhoods and raising concerns over how the zoning changes have been advertised.

“The position of many people on the Board is that right now, we aren’t seeing everything as clearly as we would like, and we want to know how this is really going to help the city,” Ward 3 Alderman Ohan Karagozian said at the hearing. “There’s no guarantee that the jobs this project promises to create will go to New Haven residents, and the long-term effects on traffic are unclear.”

Finance and legislation committee members heard testimony from 6 to 7:30 p.m. regarding the proposal to zone the site as a new business development area, and testimony continued for several hours afterward on the land disposition agreement that would transfer the 11 acres of land freed from Route 34 to real estate developer Carter Winstanley. Under the proposal, the city, state and federal government would contribute a combined $35 million clearing and improving the 100 College St. site for construction. Winstanley Enterprises would be awarded ownership of the land and spend an estimated $100 million building a parking garage and a biomedical office tower at the site.

City officials tout the plan as not only an opportunity to generate new jobs and tax revenue but also to reunify the downtown area and medical district now bifurcated by Route 34.

Many local residents who spoke at the hearing highlighted these benefits as well as the opportunity to grow New Haven’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or “STEM,” economic base. William Placke, CEO of the Start Community Bank in New Haven, said the Downtown Crossing project targets the Elm City’s “competitive advantage in bio-tech” and expands the “knowledge industry that is the future of the city.”

A group of Gateway Community College officials and students, including college president Dorsey Kendrick, also spoke in favor the project at the hearing, pointing out that many Gateway graduates go on to work as lab technicians or other medical services personnel after graduation.

“Coming from a personal perspective, it's not easy as a college student to make a decent living, a lot of jobs are not promised to us when we leave,” said Tyler Harris, a Gateway student. “I think this project is a tremendous idea, and for college students like myself, we will have more career options.”

But aldermen ultimately voted to send the proposal back to the City Plan Commission after Marjorie Shansky, a lawyer whom Urban Design League president and Downtown Crossing critic Anstress Farwell brought to the hearing, pointed out potential problems with the way the zoning change had been presented to the public. Shansky said “public notice” was deficient, and when a zoning hearing is planned, enough details must be advertised so individuals can decide if they wish to attend. She argued that the notice for the hearing, titled “New BD-3 zone and related amendments and map amendment" was inadequate. Given the scope of the project, she said, these mistakes necessitated a “do-over” from the City Plan Commission stage.

Aldermen agreed with Shansky as well as earlier opposition and decided by 7:25 p.m. to push the Downtown Crossing project back in the legislative process. Despite the setback for the proposal, Shansky said it was important to “get it right” when it comes to such significant city construction work.

New Haven is home to 39 of Connecticut’s 52 bio-tech firms.

After Brendan Ross ’13 made his first court appearance Monday on criminal charges stemming from a fatal U-Haul crash at last November’s Harvard-Yale tailgate, an attorney for the mother of the deceased victim confirmed Thursday that his client would file a civil suit against Ross.

Ross was arraigned in New Haven Superior Court around noon Monday on misdemeanor charges of negligent homicide with a motor vehicle and reckless driving. At the court hearing, Ross’s New Haven-based attorney William Dow ’63 requested a one-month discovery period to review the state’s evidence, and the case was continued until June 12. Dow told the News that Ross will plead not guilty to the criminal charges against him, labeling the state’s case as “mistaken.”

Brendan Ross ’13 made his initial court appearance Monday on criminal charges stemming from a fatal U-Haul crash at last November’s Harvard-Yale tailgate.

Ross was arraigned in New Haven Superior Court around noon Monday on misdemeanor charges of negligent homicide with a motor vehicle and reckless driving. Ross was accompanied by his mother and his New Haven-based attorney William Dow ’63. Dow requested a one-month discovery period to review the state's case, and Ross’s next court appearance is set for June 12. In a Sunday interview with the News, Dow said Ross will plead not guilty to the charges against him.

Under state law, the misdemeanor charge of negligent homicide with a motor vehicle carries a maximum penalty of a $2,500 fine and six months imprisonment.

Ross turned himself in for arrest at New Haven Police Department headquarters Friday evening after he completed his Yale final exams. His arrest came less than a month after the NHPD completed its forensics investigation into the crash and forwarded the investigation’s results to the state’s attorney’s office. NHPD spokesman David Hartman said the state’s attorney’s office submitted a request for Ross’s arrest warrant “weeks ago” and it was signed by a New Haven judge on May 1.

Last week, Dow contacted the state’s attorney’s office and agreed that Ross would turn himself in as part of the warrant after he completed his last final at Yale. Reached by phone Sunday afternoon, Dow described the incident as a “tragedy.”

“Brendan Ross is an exceptional student and member of the Yale and New Haven community and it is unfortunate that he finds himself in the situation he does,” Dow said.

After Ross’s court appearance Monday, Dow said he had received information from the state about its case and evidence only recently, adding that he would have experts examine the state’s materials over the coming month. In the meantime, Ross will return home to O’Fallon, Mo., for the summer, Dow said.

“We believe the state is mistaken in its case,” Dow said.

The NHPD forwarded the results of its investigation to the state’s attorney’s office in mid-April for review. Michael Dearington, the state’s attorney for Connecticut’s New Haven district, said Monday that the results would likely not be made public during the court case, though they have been provided to Dow. Dearington declined to comment on other aspects of the state’s case.

Ross was arrested more than five months after the crash, which occurred the morning of Nov. 19. The U-Haul driven by Ross accelerated and swerved into the Yale Bowl’s D-Lot, killing 30-year-old Nancy Barry of Salem, Mass., and injuring Sarah Short SOM ’13 and Harvard employee Elizabeth Dernbach.

Although Ross passed a field sobriety test on the scene, he was taken to NHPD headquarters on Union Avenue for questioning. Immediately following the incident, the NHPD launched a forensics investigation, which concluded in early April.

The day after the incident, Dow attributed the crash to a “vehicle malfunction.” Connecticut U-Haul executive Pete Sciortino disputed that claim in a statement to the News, saying it had no factual basis.

In a Saturday interview with the News, Paula St. Pierre, Barry’s mother, deferred comment on the case to Ralph Sbrogna, her Worcester, Mass.-based attorney.

“It just brings everything back and it’s too painful to think about,” she said. “I’m just trying to move on, one day at a time.”

Sbrogna did not return requests for comment over the weekend.

Last month, before the crash investigation was finalized, Short filed a civil suit against Ross and the U-Haul company of Connecticut, claiming that she had sustained several “severe painful and obvious injuries” from the crash. She sued for at least $15,000 — the minimum amount necessary to file a case before the court.

Short’s complaint accuses Ross and U-Haul of negligence, spelling out five potential causes of the crash. Those causes include the excessive speed of Ross’s driving, the fact that he never honked his horn and the working condition of the U-Haul, a reason Michael Stratton, Short’s lawyer, said was included because Dow said in the November the accident occurred due to an “apparent vehicle malfunction.”

In addition, Stratton said Short’s civil case might expand to include a suit against Yale for the configuration of the Yale Bowl lots, which allow trucks to drive into pedestrian areas.

Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said Saturday that the University had no comment on the ongoing legal proceedings against Ross.

Following the incident, the University tightened its tailgate regulations in January, banning kegs and “box trucks” from tailgates, establishing a vehicle-free tailgating zone and requiring all attendees to leave the student tailgating area by kickoff.