Graffiti walls do not stop vandalism: study Providing legal locations does little to reduce tagging, report finds

A report on the city’s graffiti management program, presented Thursday to the community and protective services committee, included the results of a one-year study of the city’s three legal graffiti walls and the surrounding areas.

“The results of monitoring the three existing legal graffiti walls for a one-year period indicate that the legal graffiti walls do not reduce graffiti by providing a legal location,” the report said.

But Gloucester-Southgate Councillor Diane Deans, chair of the community and protective services committee, said she likes the idea of legal graffiti walls and thinks the program could be expanded over time.

“They’ve been successful where we have them,” she said.

“Some of the murals change every couple of days, so obviously people are enjoying being there and doing graffiti art in those locations.”

In 2008, the city unveiled a new graffiti management bylaw that took a zero-tolerance approach to graffiti on all properties in the city, with vandals incurring fines of up to $610.

The graffiti arts community fought back and won the right to keep the legal graffiti walls.

The existing legal graffiti walls — one, under the Dunbar Bridge at 1301 Bronson Ave., between Carleton University’s campus and Brewer Park; a second, called “Tech Wall,” at the Albert Street Education Centre and a third at the Bob MacQuarrie skatepark in Orléans — will remain exempt from the graffiti bylaw.

The Dunbar Bridge and Tech Wall graffiti walls “focus on urban art rather than tagging and are the subjects of ongoing community programming,” the report said, and will continue to be exempt from the bylaw indefinitely.

Dunbar Bridge is home to House of PainT, an annual hip-hop festival.

The report recommended the graffiti wall at the Bob MacQuarrie skatepark be exempt from the bylaw for another year.

Orléans Councillor Bob Monette said the skatepark wall is, in fact, making a difference to the amount of graffiti in the community.

“You’ll never stop graffiti 100 per cent, but I think by tearing down the wall, taking something away from the kids, that will provoke them more than to work with them,” he said. “If you look at the wall, they are using it, and it has been successful that way.”

The report also recommended the city, in partnership with Crime Prevention Ottawa, create a program to support youth and community groups in graffiti-prone neighbourhoods to put up murals.