Richmond Police officers hit with complaints could soon have a civilian panel reviewing the details.

Monday night, City Council capped two years of debate by voting unanimously to approve the creation of a Civilian Review Board, rejecting calls for delay from advocates disappointed at the limited role the eight-member group will have.

The vote enables Richmond to join Arlington, Alexandria, Charlottesville, Virginia Beach and hundreds of localities across the country in establishing a civilian panel.

How soon the board will be in place is unknown. The council must hire a staff member to handle the board’s day-to-day affairs and write the policies and procedures and the board members must be appointed.

What is clear is that the governing body of Virginia’s capital city agreed with Mayor Levar M. Stoney in taking a cautious approach to launching the first ever group to review police actions.

The approved ordinance, though, creates a board that is far from the robust, independent operation advocates sought that would be armed with the power to discipline officers, audit police spending and change police operating procedures.

Instead, the new CRB is classified as an advisory body that can only review a limited number of police actions and only make recommendations to the police chief and others if a claim of misconduct is proven.

At a time when the Police Department is continuing to lose officers and currently has nearly 160 vacancies, according to the chair of the Public Safety Committee, 8th District Councilwoman Reva M. Trammell, an advisory panel is as far as most on council were willing to go to avoid more losses.

Mayor Stoney, who introduced the legislation with the support of four council members, described the ordinance as an effort to balance the need to appreciate the important and dangerous work that police officers do and the need for accountability if officers transgress.

Last year, 62 complaints were filed against city police officers, with 25 coming from civilians and 37 generated internally by command staff or other officers reporting violations.

Among those urging City Council to take more time before moving forward was Tom Barbour, an attorney who spoke for the Richmond City Democratic Committee, which announced its opposition to the ordinance as written in September, citing it as too weak to make a difference.

“Richmonders want a CRB that works to keep bad officers off of our streets,” Mr. Barbour told the council.

He said the board would have no authority “to impose discipline in case of police misconduct,” arguing that means the department would be free to keep “bad actors and ineffective officers’” even if the panel recommended their removal.

Yohance Whitaker, a community organizer for the Legal Aid Justice Center and a member of the Richmond Transparency and Accountability Project that has advocated for a strong board with subpoena power, expressed concern that the board that council was setting up would have the “fewest powers of any CRB” being established in Virginia.

The approved paper also did not sit well with Dr. Eli Coston, a Virginia Commonwealth University assistant professor who has been a leader in RTAP and co-chaired a council-appointed task force that recommended Richmond establish a strong CRB.

“If something is set up that’s not effective [and] where people’s problems with the police still aren’t addressed, then that’s just going to further erode community trust in the process, and in the police, and in the city generally,” Dr. Coston stated after reviewing the proposal that passed.

However, Council President Cynthia I. Newbille and others members of council told critics they felt it was better to approve an ordinance so the board can get set up and to come back after it is established to consider changes if needed.

“We have heard your concerns,” Dr. Newbille said.

At this point, the board once established, would be limited to “reviewing, investigating and making recommendations to the council, the mayor and the chief of police concerning internal investigations” for a small number of cases.