MONTEREY — While the Monterey City Council Tuesday night OK’d a transfer of land that at some point in the future will become a sizeable park, housing advocates are saying it was a terrible and short-sighted mistake.

At issue is the 135-acre Old Capitol Site that until Tuesday was owned by Pebble Beach Co. on a hillside overlooking Highway 1 across from the Del Monte Shopping Center in southeast Monterey. The council, on a 4-1 vote, accepted the land for free and then immediately rezoned it from low-density housing to open space.

The debate centers on whether that land is best used as a park or for a site for additional housing in the city. But the issue gets clouded by a legal requirement placed on the land that the majority of the council view as tying their hands.

The property has a long and byzantine history beginning in 1967, including stints where Pebble Beach sought to build a major development project comprising at one time 900 homes and a 400-room hotel. But Monterey fought that until 2012 when through attrition the two sides decided to put any development on the back burner. Instead, Pebble Beach returned home.

The affluent community sits entirely in the county except for a small condominium enclave near the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. So any development must be approved by the county Board of Supervisors, as it did when it granted a permit to Pebble Beach to develop more lots as part of a build-out.

But the county put several conditions on the permit, one of which required Pebble Beach to donate open space property to a local agency to counter the land Pebble Beach was removing from open space to build the homes. That agency was the city of Monterey. Supporters of the parkland use say the city’s hands are tied in that it can’t change a condition the county placed on the property.

Councilman Ed Smith, who voted in the majority, said that while he understands the need for housing, this property is not the answer.

“We have no choice,” Smith said. “We can’t go down that path to undo what the county has done.”

But Councilman Tyller Williamson, the lone dissenter in the council’s decision, said elected officials did have a choice. They could have denied the land donation which would have created a situation where if Pebble Beach wanted any kind of return on the property it would need to go back to the county to renegotiate that condition.

Williamson believes that renegotiation could have been done before it came to the council, at which point the city could have zoned it for single-family or multi-family units as well as a nice size park.

Others aren’t so sure. Kristi Markey, chief of staff for Supervisor Jane Parker, said that in a sense the county’s hands were tied as well.

“The land was dedicated as open space to mitigate development in Pebble Beach,” Markey said. “The county would be unable to simply lift the restriction since it was established to comply with state law regarding environmental mitigation.”

Monterey City Attorney Christine Davi concurred, saying it was not the city of Monterey that established the restriction and they are now required to proceed with the zoning.

Affordable housing advocates argue there is no land of this size left in Monterey to build the housing needed to meet state mandates to all California cities to increase housing stock or face repercussions.

Councilman Dan Albert said he empathizes with housing proponents but based on the city’s legal advice voted for the rezoning. One of his points is that it’s better to bring it under city control rather than leaving it in the hands of Pebble Beach.

“We all know affordable housing is important along the Peninsula, but this property was deed-restricted,” Albert said. “What we need to look at is perhaps increasing density as other projects come up.”

He cited as an example a recent zone change on Garden Road that opened up the possibility of adding some 400 new apartments to the housing stock.

But Sonja Trauss, a statewide housing advocate, did not mince words when she wrote to the city on Tuesday.

“The timing of these changes to the Old Capitol Site are highly suspicious,” Trauss wrote. SB 330, recently ratified, would render the changes being contemplated here would be unlawful were they to be considered after January 1, 2020.”

Senate Bill 330, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October, bars local governments from reducing the number of homes that can be built through zoning. In this case, the Old Capitol Site was reduced from low-density housing to open space. The law takes effect on Jan. 1, 2020.

Matthew Lewis, director of communications for Cal Yimby (Yes in my Back Yard), another statewide housing group, questioned whether it was environmentally sound to provide more open space when forcing the workforce to live away from Monterey.

He addressed the support provided to the city by environmental groups like the Monterey Audubon Society and the statewide Sierra Club by reminding them that the greatest threat to wildlife and habitat is coming from climate change, not a 135-acre property.

“The biggest existential threat to birds is tailpipe emissions,” he said. “Highway 68 is packed every morning because the city has erected a wall keeping people from living in the same city they work in.”