Judge Weighs Suit Over Office Complex : Sherman Oaks: The Ventura Boulevard project’s builder says L.A. is delaying permits.

A judge said Wednesday that he will decide within two weeks whether to allow a controversial office complex to be built on a site that once housed the Scene of the Crime bookstore on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks.

After a two-hour hearing in which the developer’s attorney accused Los Angeles city officials of illegally delaying permits needed for the project, Superior Court Judge John Zebrowski said he would take the matter under submission.

The developer, Jacky Gamliel, filed a $10-million lawsuit against the city in March after years of tangling with Sherman Oaks residents over the proposal, which calls for a 90,000-square-foot, three-story office and retail complex on Ventura Boulevard between Woodman and Ventura Canyon avenues.

Councilman Michael Woo, also named as a defendant in the suit, sided with residents in opposing the project, saying the development was out of scale with the surrounding neighborhood and with the pedestrian-style atmosphere that he has tried to maintain in Sherman Oaks.

Gamliel’s attorney, Benjamin M. Reznik, argued Wednesday that the city violated state law by failing to issue permits for the project. He said Gamliel applied for building permits in August, 1989, at a time when the project complied with land-use regulations. The developer resubmitted his plan in December, 1989, with revisions requested by the city, Reznik said. At that time, Reznik said, the plan was “deemed complete” and, according to state law, the city had six months to act on the project.

Instead, he said, city agencies delayed action until after the Jan. 14, 1991, start date of the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan, which prohibits projects as large as Gamliel’s.

Deputy City Atty. Susan Pfann denied that city officials acted improperly. “The plans were not in order for the city to approve.”

Pfann said the developer still has not satisfied city planners on various details of the plan.