Beverly Hills Hotel Project May Face Referendum
By ANDY FIXMER
Staff Reporter
With city approvals in hand for a luxury resort complex, developers of the planned Montage Hotel Beverly Hills and Public Gardens now face the prospect of a voter referendum that could potentially overturn the entitlements on the $200 million project.
A group of residents and merchants calling themselves the Campaign to Save Beverly Hills has launched a signature drive to put approval of the 228-room project on the ballot in the city’s March 8, 2005 election or through a special election called by the City Council.
The group has until Aug. 27 to gather nearly 2,000 signatures, according to City Clerk Nina Webster, who said there was not time for the issue to make the November ballot.
“We don’t want to see the City Council sell out the residents,” said Thomas A. White, who is leading the opposition. “We’re dealing with multibillion dollar opponents, so it’s going to be an expensive process.”
The Beverly Hills City Council approved the plans of Phoenix-based Athens Group and Laguna Beach-based Montage Hotels & Resorts LLC for the Montage on July 28.
Athens Group Chief Executive Jay Newman was out of the country last week, but wrote in an e-mail that the company was preparing for construction despite the threat of a referendum.
“We are prepared to deal with the referendum if they are successful in gathering the signatures. We have ample resources to proceed on parallel tracks,” he wrote.
In addition to the hotel, developers received approvals for 25,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space surrounding an acre of park area. An underground garage component could hold as many as 1,500 cars.
White said the signature-gathering process has been slowed by an Athens-backed group called Sensible Merchants And Residents Together, which he alleged has hired people to shadow signature gatherers and convince registered voters not to sign the petition.
Newman acknowledged that Athens is openly supporting SMART. But he countered that the Coalition was funded in large part by competing Beverly Hills hotels and denied that signature gatherers were being harassed. White confirmed that area hotels were a part of the Coalition, but declined to say which had made contributions. The group’s financial backers will have to be revealed as part of future campaign finance disclosures.
