Bill Could Make Soka Price Soar : Conservancy: Assembly panel approves a measure that is viewed as a setback to state and federal efforts to acquire the university’s Calabasas site. The cost may rise $10 million.

A state Assembly committee approved a bill Wednesday that critics said would probably increase by $10 million the cost of land in the Santa Monica Mountains that the state and federal agencies want to buy from Soka University in Calabasas.

The action was a setback for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the National Park Service, which want the school’s campus for a mountain park headquarters, and a victory for Soka University, an offshoot of a Japanese university that seeks to establish a 4,400-student college on the meadowland.

Estimates of the site’s value range from $30 million to $60 million.

After heavy lobbying by the university to amend the measure, the Judiciary Committee passed it by a 6-2 vote Wednesday and sent it to the Ways and Means Committee. The action came after a lively hearing in which a lawmaker assailed the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which he said serves only the wealthy.

The central issue in the legislation by Sen. Nicholas C. Petris (D-Oakland) is the method of calculating compensation when a public agency attempts to condemn property owned by a nonprofit school or church, such as Soka University.

Under current law, the price of land sought through eminent domain proceedings is supposed to be pegged to the “fair market value.”

Under that principle, government appraisals now reflect only the value of the land and the depreciated value of existing buildings.

But Petris is seeking to revise the formula, in the case of land owned by churches and schools, by requiring a payment high enough to cover the cost of rebuilding in the same area.

He sought the change because of a dispute involving property owned by the Lynwood Seventh-day Adventist Academy, which is being sought by the Lynwood Unified School District.

At the request of the conservancy, which acquires land in the mountains for state park use, and its supporters, Petris had agreed to exempt the Santa Monica Mountains from the measure until Jan. 1, 1993.

But at Wednesday’s hearing, Soka University lobbyists persuaded the committee to remove the Soka exemption.

Soka supporters said it was unfair to treat the Santa Monica Mountains land differently than other parts of the state.

At one point, Assemblyman Richard Floyd (D-Carson), a Soka supporter, complained about being forced to deal with a variety of Santa Monica Mountains issues.

“For years now I’ve sat in the Legislature and watched this B.S. on this Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. . . . It’s a park for the rich,” Floyd said.

“It’s not true,” shot back Assemblyman Terry Friedman (D-Los Angeles), who represents the mountains and who also sits on the committee.

Friedman, a longtime conservancy supporter, failed to muster enough backing for an amendment to defer the effective date of the entire bill until 1993.

Petris said he was surprised to find himself in the middle of a local land-use dispute between the conservancy, which he admires, and Soka’s heavy-hitter lobbying firm.

Soka recently retained the lobbying firm of former Orange County Sen. Dennis Carpenter.

At least four of the firm’s advocates, including former Assemblyman Richard Robinson (D-Santa Ana), were pushing their case at the committee hearing.

Joseph T. Edmiston, the conservancy’s executive director, predicted that if the Petris bill becomes law, “it will have a devastating effect.”

Calling the legislation a “special-interest” bill for Soka, he predicted that it could add at least $10 million to the price of Soka’s 580 acres.

Hodge Dolle, a Soka lawyer, dismissed Edmiston’s estimate on the legislation’s effect on the cost of the land.

“Ten million dollars is something out of the air,” said Dolle, who also serves as attorney for the Seventh-day Adventists.

While conservancy supporters have suggested that the land is worth about $30 million, Soka officials said Wednesday that they have spent about $60 million acquiring the land since 1986.

Bernetta Reade, a spokeswoman for the university, said the school is pleased with the Assembly committee action because it means that Soka would receive “a fair and just compensation” if the land is ever taken through condemnation proceedings.