COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Columbus City Council altered a number of policies in one portion of the city code Monday night dealing with public rights of way, as some advocates voiced fears the changes would give the public service department more power to clear homeless camps.

Council members voted unanimously on the tweaks, which alter city code on “streets, parks and public properties.” Largely, city officials said they were seeking the code changes to formalize a permitting process for commercial and noncommercial purposes and to downgrade penalties for violating the code from criminal to civil, according to Councilmember Lourdes Barroso de Padilla. 

It stemmed from “egregious” violations by commercial contractors, she and other city officials said. An assistant public service director cited instances where contractors would close off lanes or place steel plates on the roadways without prior permission. 

“All this is doing is giving us the authority to make sure that those contractors, et cetera, are getting the permits to do the work, because some are not, and then when they are getting the permits, that they are … doing the work as stated within the permit,” Director of Public Service Director Jennifer Gallagher said at an earlier council meeting, when the legislation was first heard by council. 

Oftentimes, the “bad actors” were also not returning rights-of-way back to their original state after construction, she said. 

But several local advocates, including those with south Columbus homeless mutual aid organization Heer to Serve, testified Monday that they worried the changes to code for noncommercial entities would have unintended consequences for Columbus residents without permanent housing — particularly those who are presently living in tents on or near city sidewalks and bikeways. 

They pointed to language in particular that would require permission from the public service department to “erect or maintain a structure on the right-of-way of any street, alley, or public way of the city for any noncommercial purpose.” 

“Coming out of COVID, we’ve seen record evictions, which means we are seeing record numbers of people in tents who would be in potential public right-of-ways under this definition,” founder Emily Myers told council members. “If you want to go after contractors, go after contractors, but do not make it vague.” 

Barroso de Padilla said, however, that it is not the city’s intent to target Columbus’ homeless population — which increased in the last year, according to an annual count. 

“In the past ten years, public service has never once used this code to remove people from tents,” she said in an interview following the vote. 

When the city has cleared homeless camps in the past, she said, it has often been the result of a non-emergency 311 grievance — and that the department of public safety, rather than public service, is the department with the ability to do so under other policies. “This code is not for that intention,” she said. 

Still, advocates said they worried the city could — under the freshly-amended code — fine homeless Columbus residents since they do not have proper permitting for their tents, or that the city could target advocates protesting in the public right-of-way, too. 

“It’s a joke. It’s an absolute joke,” Myers said in an interview. “We had 250-plus people on the waiting list for shelters this week alone.” 

The amended code can be read in full on the city’s legislative website here.