Deschutes County Commissioners voted two to one to move forward with code amendments that would restrict people from camping on publicly owned property. Deschutes County Sheriff Shane Nelson proposed the camping ban, saying it would allow his office to enforce no-camping zones and a two-week limit on campsites, similar to the federal government’s regulations on National Forests and other lands.
Nelson said the ordinance is a work in progress, but that the spirit of the code changes is “clear and necessary.” The draft presented to commissioners barred any camping within 1 mile of urban growth boundaries and the border of a property that’s zoned as a residence. On county-owned land the Sheriff’s Office could give notice to camps after 24 hours, after which the campsite would have to move at least 600 feet within three days. On federally owned land that’s more than a mile outside of a UGB; campsites can stay two weeks in one place before being required to move at least 2.5 miles.
“The importance of this ordinance is so that when we go out and we have contacts with individuals that are living in these situations, we have the ability to enforce the rule of law and offer resources,” Nelson told the commission.
The code changes would also regulate how people camp. They prohibit fires within a mile of an urban growth boundary and disallow accumulation of trash, erecting structures, storing personal items, keeping broken-down vehicles, digging and unleashed pets. The code would have some leeway on enforcement during extreme weather events. Nelson said the 1-mile buffer around the UGB is intended to protect residences from fires. He cited five instances when properties were threatened by fire from improper burning.
Deschutes County Commissioner Phil Chang, the lone vote against proceeding with the code amendments, questioned whether the proposed code would be in violation of Martin v. Boise, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that bars cities from enforcing anti-camping ordinances if there aren’t enough shelter beds to house the local homeless population. The ruling doesn’t specify which public properties and what hours camping can be prohibited, and municipalities across the state have implemented restrictions on camping.
In March, both the Bend and Redmond City Councils adopted codes restricting the time, place and manner in which people can camp. Similarly, on June 7, Portland adopted an ordinance banning camping on public property between 8 am and 8 pm. The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to Bend in March warning that its camping code could invite constitutional liabilities, and asked the City to pause implementations of the code changes.
“I think it’s extremely important for us to understand what kind of legal challenge we are inviting or would face moving forward before we think seriously about moving forward with it,” Chang said of the Deschutes County code.
Chang said he’s not against a camping code in theory, but says it needs to work in conjunction with a broader plan for ending homelessness. He said clearing camps tends to just scatter people to other areas, that he doesn’t think the Sheriff’s Office has the resources to track camps or connect them with services and that the time and places people camp should be clearer before there are restrictions. Nelson pushed back, saying there’s an urgent need to do something about unsanctioned camping.
“If you don’t take one step in any direction you will get nowhere. And that’s why I’m pushing for this ordinance because it will give us another tool in our toolbelt. We don’t need to tell folks where to go,” Nelson said. “We can tell folks where they can’t go, there’s another 1.5 million acres in this county where folks can go, and they can camp in accordance with the rules. If we delay and we wait until we have a solution to homelessness, we will never get there.”
Adopting an ordinance amending the camping code requires a public hearing, and county staff estimated there will probably be two meetings, considering the number of revisions to the proposed code. Upon adoption it’d take 90 days for the camping ordinance to go into effect. County Commissioners Tony DeBone and Patti Adair voted in favor of advancing the proposed code amendments as an evolving draft, and DeBone predicted contentious meetings as the code moves forward.
“It’s not a pretty process and we’re going to be all engaged and fired up on this, but I do support this in concept as a starting point,” DeBone said.
This article appears in Source Weekly June 15, 2023.
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