The number of homeless allowed to sleep at the Lawrence Community Shelter will more than double this winter, a divided Lawrence City Commission decided late Tuesday.

On a 3-2 vote, commissioners agreed to increase the overnight occupancy limit at the shelter — located at 10th and Kentucky streets — to 76 people. That’s up from 31 people currently. But the larger capacity will be allowed only between Oct. 1 to April 1. During the rest of the year, the overnight occupancy will be capped at 53 people.

Shelter leaders sought the increased occupancy because they have been turning people away after The Salvation Army closed its 42-bed homeless shelter earlier this summer.

“I think we need to recognize with this economy there are going to be more homeless in the future,” said City Commissioner Mike Dever. “If we want people to do something other than sleep in doorways, we need to offer them an alternative.”

Dever, along with Commissioners Mike Amyx and Aron Cromwell, voted to increase the occupancy levels. Mayor Rob Chestnut and Commissioner Lance Johnson voted against the proposal. Both expressed concern that the shelter space was just too small to handle the increased number of people, and that the crowding would end up causing problems for the neighborhood.

“I have grave concerns about the critical mass we would be creating down there,” Chestnut said.

The new occupancy limits fall short of what shelter leaders had sought, and will require the shelter to continue turning some people away from the shelter during the non-winter months. But Loring Henderson, executive director of the shelter, said the shelter would find a way to make the situation work. On some nights, the shelter has turned away about 20 people, although shelter leaders have let the individuals remain on the facility’s back porch through the night.

“The most pressing need was to sleep the 42 people,” said Henderson, referring to the people who were affected by the closing of The Salvation Army shelter. “But we can live with this since they took into consideration the cold weather, which has been everybody’s concern.”

Commissioners heard more than an hour’s worth of public comment, including impassioned pleas from neighbors who did not want the shelter to expand, and from homeless individuals who said the space was desperately needed.

The issue came to a head on the same day that the Lawrence Community Shelter confirmed reports that surfaced Monday that the shelter had reached a tentative deal to purchase the former Don’s Steakhouse building in eastern Lawrence to serve as a new shelter site.

The shelter plans a press conference for this morning to give more details on the project. All five commissioners said Tuesday they were hopeful that plans for a new shelter would be successful so that the current facility at 10th and Kentucky could close.

“The message I want to communicate to neighbors is that I really do believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel here,” Cromwell said.