Sanctioned graffiti zones being considered to deter vandalism in Vancouver

The City of Vancouver is considering the notion of sanctioned graffiti zones in select neighbourhoods in an effort to deter vandalism.

Couns. Lisa Dominato and Pete Fry first brought the motion to council in May of 2021, after seeing a 67 per cent increase in graffiti on public property.

The topic continued during a presentation to council on Tuesday, when staff expressed the importance of cleaning up city streets, especially with the return of summer tourists.

Dominato tells CTV News Vancouver that some neighbourhoods have been hit particularly hard with vandalism over the course of the pandemic, including Chinatown and parts of the downtown core.

"The idea behind graffiti zones is that these would be sanctioned places in the city where you can do graffiti art and encourage that work on those sanctioned spaces, while getting away from this prolific tagging of both public and private property," she says.

Dominato adds that similar projects have already been rolled out in several other cities across Canada, the U.S. and even in Australia.

"Graffiti is not a victimless crime," Dominato says. "In terms of having a small business owner, for example, having to remediate that and the cost of repainting."

Dominato hopes that these so-called "graffiti walls" would mean the city would see less damage to public property, by giving graffiti artists a designated space to express themselves.

Dominato outlined another initiative brought to council this week, to enforce a restorative justice approach in order to hold prolific taggers accountable.

"If we can identify the taggers and have them actually participate in the clean-up of the graffiti, they may actually start understanding the impact of their actions on a community," she says.

"We need to tackle this because in Chinatown, it's more pronounced. The vandalism and graffiti definitely reflects racism and that's deeply concerning for us as council and for the community."

Fry says sanctioned graffiti areas would allow for a creative solution to the problem and it can help mitigate some of the impacts on small businesses.

"We need to divert some of that energy, so that we can really allow the small businesses and the community of Chinatown to thrive," he says. "What we see certainly in a lot of the Chinatown specific contexts, is it imparts a sense that the neighborhood is neglected, it imparts a sense that there are unsafe parts, and it imparts a sense that people don't care about Chinatown. But that's not the case at all. Chinatown is a vibrant community and we're actively looking at ways we can further enhance the Chinatown experience."

As for where these graffiti zones could potentially show up in the city, Fry says they're still exploring areas.

"I think there's plenty of alleys off Hastings that could be appropriate," he says. "The skate park under the viaduct would be a great spot to do some kind of sanctioned graffiti zone."

According to a memo to city council last week, the next steps include engaging key stakeholders such as BIAs, the street art community, Vancouver Mural Festival, and the Chinatown Legacy Stewardship Group to gauge their interests in the sanctioned graffiti wall initiative.

But Fry says early indications show that many within the street art community support the notion.

"Let's create opportunities for sanctioned graffiti areas," he says. "We've heard from the graffiti community that they're into it as well."