Council Clears Way for 5-Story Wilshire Store : Zoning: The amendment to the General Plan would allow a Barney’s to be built. A plan by Saks to expand its emporium collapses and is taken off the agenda.

The Beverly Hills City Council gave the go-ahead this week for a new five-story specialty store on Wilshire Boulevard, but a group of residents announced plans to seek a referendum to block the project.

The 4-1 vote approved zone changes and an amendment to the city’s General Plan that would allow Barney’s, an upscale New York retailer of men’s and women’s clothing, to build its West Coast branch at the corner of Camden Drive.

The decision Tuesday night came after the collapse of what had been viewed as a related project--a plan by Saks Fifth Avenue to expand its nearby emporium by building a bridge across Peck Drive.

The Saks proposal had been scheduled for consideration at the meeting, but store representatives asked that it be taken off the agenda.

“It’s dead, and now we have to wait for Saks to come back,” said City Councilman Max Salter.

“It would have been 600 feet of solid building along Wilshire Boulevard, and I couldn’t support it,” said City Councilman Allan L. Alexander, who met with Saks officials after the bridge was proposed last month.

Alexander and Salter supported the Barney’s proposal, however, as did Councilman Bernard J. Hecht and Mayor Vicki Reynolds.

“There are many more quality benefits to the project than there are detriments,” Reynolds said.

She cited an expected increase in sales tax revenue to the city of more than $700,000 a year and traffic studies that showed little impact if Barney’s were to take the place of two former bank buildings that now occupy the site.

But members of the Municipal League, accusing the City Council of yielding to special interests, vowed to mount a petition drive to force a referendum. To do so, the organization would have to gather 1,900 valid signatures--10% of the registered voters--within 30 days.

A similar effort led to the defeats in referendums several years ago of proposals to allow high-rise hotels to be built in the city, and to develop its east side industrial zone.

If the league succeeds in gathering the necessary signatures, the City Council would have to repeal the measure or put it up for a public vote. Barney’s would be stymied until the issue was resolved at the ballot box.

“It would take only three votes on the council to build an 85-story building in Beverly Hills, and without referendum power confirmed by state law we’d be powerless to prevent that,” said Thomas A. White, vice chairman of the league.

The Barney’s project, he said, is “the culmination of years of advocacy for developers. . . . It’s a massive project and the residents don’t want it.”

Two other community groups indicated that they intend to stay out of the fight. Ken Goldman, president of the Southwest Homeowners’ Assn., which bitterly fought the proposed Saks expansion, said the group has voted not to get involved in the petition drive.

Only five members of his board of directors voted to support the referendum, he said, while 60 were against it. But when asked how they will vote if the issue does appear on the ballot, Goldman said the group was less decisive, with no more than 60% saying they would support the City Council’s stand.

Gerson Curtiss, a spokesman for Concern for Tenants’ Rights, a renters’ group, said his organization, too, will stay out of the referendum effort.

City Councilman Robert K. Tanenbaum was the one elected official to oppose Barney’s expansion, saying that Wilshire Boulevard is congested and that any new construction would only make things worse.

“I find this to be spot zoning and an example of bad planning,” he said. “We have to be out front in planning and not respond to one particular merchant or project.”

Opponents of the Barney’s project also said its projected payoff in sales tax is largely illusory. They said much of Barney’s business would be drawn away from competing merchants.