Aurora City Council passed on first reading Monday night the urban camping ban Mayor Mike Coffman brought back to the now right-leaning City Council after it failed in August.

Coffman voted aye to break council’s tie vote with an overall vote of 6-5 for the ban. 

The ban — which will need to pass a second vote before being implemented — would prohibit all urban camping on private and public property within Aurora. It also requires a 72-hour notice before an unauthorized camp is shut down and for the city to have shelter available for every person staying in the camp. If shelter space is not available, the city would not touch the camp, according to the ban.

Council debated multiple aspects of the ordinance. Councilmember Crystal Murillo asked that the council and staff look into some way to save and store folks’ important personal belongings to ensure they won’t be thrown away, and council supported this idea, so more details on this will be presented on the ordinance’s second reading at the next council meeting.

Murillo also asked for a sunset and review on the effectiveness of the ordinance in a year, but Coffman would not support a sunset. Coffman and council unanimously supported the idea of transparency and evaluating the program’s effectiveness, though, voting to approve an amendment to the ordinance to reflect this. Coffman also noted, though, that if six council members want to change or eliminate a policy they can bring it up at any time.

Councilmember Angela Lawson noted that along I-225, the Colorado Department of Transportation has jurisdiction and the city does not have authority to abate homeless camps there, and that fact hasn’t been discussed at all among the council.

In August, Coffman proposed the same ban, which failed in repeated 5-5 tie votes. Despite the conflicted council, Coffman has stood behind his proposal, calling it a better option than what the city is doing now. Since the camping ban was last proposed, the City Council flipped from an even party split to a Republican majority, with six of the 10 members leaning right.

During public comment on the urban camping ban at City Council’s meeting Monday night, many spoke in opposition of the ban, calling it inhumane and a glorified ban on homeless people. Several also criticized Coffman for posing as homeless last year and said the ban will unnecessarily increase facetime between underserved populations and the Aurora Police Department. Others spoke in favor, saying homelessness has gotten out of control, having community members living on the streets is not acceptable and the city needs to do better for its people.

Denver has had a similar urban camping ban in place since 2012. Last year, an estimated 1,185 people were living on the streets of the city, according to the Denver Department of Housing Stability. Another 3,752 people were living in Denver’s homeless shelters, according to an annual count.

Last year, Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson openly spoke against the ban, saying it would be “an absolute burden” on the police department.

In the most recent count from 2020, there were 61 unsheltered homeless people living in Aurora in places like unauthorized camps. That year, there were 427 total homeless people in Aurora. In 2021, a count that did not include unsheltered populations said there were 594 homeless people living in shelters in Aurora.