Woo Vows He’ll Find Way to Halt 3-Story Project on Ventura Blvd.

City Councilman Michael Woo on Tuesday vowed to stall a commercial project in Sherman Oaks that developers want approved before new city building restrictions are adopted under the proposed Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan.

Woo said his staff was working with the city attorney’s office “to find some legal means to stop” the three-story project planned for the corner of Ventura Boulevard and Woodman Avenue.

“The Specific Plan is intended to stop overdevelopment on Ventura Boulevard,” Woo said. “This project is clearly out of scale. If the plan were in effect it would bring it down to two stories, which is more appropriate for that location and more compatible with the village-like atmosphere in that part of Sherman Oaks.”

Building officials have announced their intent to exempt the $20-million mixed-use project from a full environmental impact report, a decision that increases Beverly Hills developer Jacky Gamliel’s chances of being awarded construction permits before the new planning measure is adopted by the City Council.

The Specific Plan is scheduled for a hearing before the council Dec. 18. Woo said there is a “fairly good chance it could be adopted then.”

However, a city building and safety official said his department could sign off on the Gamliel project within two weeks.

The planned 85,000-square-foot office and retail complex has become a pet cause of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn.--partly because it involved closing the Scene of the Crime bookstore and other neighborhood landmarks, and partly because it comes just as the long-awaited Specific Plan is before the City Council.

Richard Close, president of the homeowners’ group, called the project a symbol of developers’ efforts to beat the Specific Plan.

“I’m sure they would like to avoid the Specific Plan, as would most landowners,” Close said. “If they had done their EIR six months or a year ago as we requested, they wouldn’t be in this situation.”

But the developer’s attorney, Benjamin M. Reznik, said the project had become an unfair target of neighborhood activists who have pressured Woo into intervening. He said the project has been under review by city officials for 16 months, a period he called unreasonably long.

“This is a perfect example of an abuse of an elected official’s power where he singles out one particular project for attack, and that is discriminatory,” said Reznik, who failed last summer to win a court order for a permit to demolish the buildings now on the site.

“I suppose if he’s successful the city and the taxpayers of this city will have to answer in court for the damages,” Reznik said.

Under the Building Department’s tentative decision, Gamliel would have to widen nearby streets and subsidize the cost of new traffic signals to make up for the increase in car trips his project will generate.

Tom Grant, a homeowner who has been monitoring the project, said Gamliel’s own traffic study showed the block-long building will double the cars at Woodman Avenue and Ventura Boulevard from about 5,000 to 10,000 a day.

But Reznik said Grant had failed to count 3,600 cars that were generated by the site’s old businesses. He also said the traffic study notes that 5,700 cars are counted at the intersection even with those businesses closed. So, according to Reznik’s interpretation, the project will increase cars at the corner by less than 1,000.

Reznik said he will ask the council to exempt the project from the Specific Plan when discussed later this month. Woo said he will oppose Reznik’s efforts.