Sudbury's legal graffiti wall gets a fresh start

Sudbury's legal graffiti wall just got a fresh coat of paint.In August of 2018 city council voted to exempt the wall, on Old City Hall Lane between Lisgar and Durham streets, from its graffiti removal bylaw.

The pilot project was initiated after city staff saw that other municipalities had been successful with similar projects.

Ed Landry, a senior city planner oversees Sudbury's public art portfolio. He says the intended benefits are twofold — "it's to build capacity in public art, but also it's used as a graffiti abatement program." 

So far, he thinks the project has been a success. 

Ottawa faced similar graffiti issues

In 2009 city staff in Ottawa released a report indicating that legal graffiti walls did not curtail illegal graffiti activity.

"This is because graffiti is not carried out for artistic purposes," the report said said. "In the eyes of the vandal, graffiti must be illegal to be 'real.' "

Despite the negative sentiment from city staff at the time, Ottawa still has three legal graffiti sites where "graffiti is permitted and encouraged," according to its website. 

Though there has only been one re-paint since the project's inception in 2018, Landry said it's common practice to wipe the slate clean three times a year. 

Christian Pelletier, co-founder of the Up Here festival and one of the driving forces behind the wall's implementation, said the amount of activity on the wall indicates the plan has been a success.

"The wall has been very active and artists have gone and whitewashed areas they've needed to work on. It get's really filled up," Pelletier said.

City officials will be making recommendations to council in the fall on whether the pilot project should continue.