SANTA CRUZ >> Citing a purported escalation of homeless use and aggression, Santa Cruz administrators have converted the public spaces around City Hall from an open-access “park” to more restrictive office grounds, officials said Tuesday.

The courtyard, grassy areas, public walkways, sidewalks and decorative walls surrounding the 809 Center St. building not far from downtown are now “closed” to the public after 6 p.m. weekdays, and altogether on weekends, Santa Cruz City Manager Martín Bernal said. The site, including a rose garden area, was previously open on weekends until 10 p.m. Exceptions to the public access will be by special permit or until a half hour after evening public meetings on site conclude.

“You can’t really live on the sidewalks here, reasonably. Obviously, it’s not really meant for that,” Bernal said, citing complaints about aggressive interactions between city workers and the public. “And then, in the mornings, when people want to park at the parking meters, they can’t.”

New signs posted around City Hall on Friday state the new hours and ban unpermitted amplified sound, personal property on public walkways and walls and lying or sitting in the area. At Bernal’s direction, the move came within less than a week of the Santa Cruz City Council approving a comprehensive new 20-item plan to address the impacts of homelessness on the community.

Calling the change “administrative,” Bernal said on Tuesday that the city needed to establish clear standards and rules for visitors, to keep City Hall a “safe and welcoming environment” for all. Bernal said the change in use of the city grounds is a separate issue from the City Council’s efforts. Bernal said he and city employees are very “tolerant and understanding and compassionate about the issue of homelessness.”

In the last year, the city has escalated security for the area, from paid First Alarm contractors to city park Rrangers to more regular police patrols, Bernal said. The increased enforcement has moved many who sleep in the area overnight to the property’s perimeter, Bernal said.

“People have made this sort of their residence, actually. They’re here at night, but that’s not when they’re interacting,” Bernal said. “The impacts are felt the next morning. We pretty much have to sanitize City Hall every day.”

Prior to posting the new rules, Bernal said he reached out to Santa Cruz County’s Human Services Agency two weeks ago for additional once-a-week mental health worker outreach around City Hall and the downtown. He had not yet heard back on results of that effort, he said Tuesday. Bernal said he also sat down to discuss the coming changes with Food Not Bombs organizers, who participate in weekly protests at City Hall against the city’s camping laws, which ban public sleeping. Food Not Bombs founder Keith McHenry issued an “emergency Freedom Sleepers Sleep-Out” email blast on Friday in response to the new signs.

Local activist Sherry Conable responded to the McHenry’s email, asking why the city thinks “more and more restrictions, that will be enforced selectively by intention, will work anything out.”

Bernal said clamping down on people sleeping around City Hall will not solve the city’s homelessness issue, but rather force it to move to a different location for the immediate future. Bernal said he hopes once some of the council’s recommended projects, such as the Downtown Streets Team, get up and running, homelessness will decrease locally.