Edmonton is cleaning up when it comes to graffiti.
The results of the 2011 Capital City Clean Up were announced Tuesday, and graffiti vandalism is down by 43 per cent compared to 2010.
The audit monitored graffiti in the hardest hit areas of our city.
“It included the top twenty neighbourhoods in terms of the recorded graffiti observations and complaints that the city of Edmonton received,” says project manager Sharon Chapman adding, “The results that we reported here today were conducted by an independent auditor who went street by street, alley by alley.”
Chapman says 60 percent of all the graffiti in Edmonton is located in five neighbourhoods- Downtown, Boyle Street, Strathcona, Central McDougall and Oliver.
Corinne Lillo and her family own a music store on Whyte Avenue. She says vandals have a problem in the area for years.
“We want customers to come in and if you see graffiti it’s scary for people.”
Over the past few years however, Lillo says she has been noticing less and less graffiti marking the walls of her store.
“I guess, noticeably, a big difference in the past year where we’ve hardly seen any graffiti.”
Lillo says everyone is putting a lot of effort into making the area look good.
“I think the hard work of the business owners, the residents, the police have been doing a great job of catching the taggers, people have been reporting if they see graffiti. I think people just want this area to be clean and safe,” Lillo adds.
The Manager of Community Standards with the City of Edmonton, David Akin, says last year the branch received more than 4,100 graffiti complaints, with a compliance rate of over 99 per cent.
“It’s astounding that of those 4,100 issues that we dealt with, we only had to take formal enforcement action on 21.”
Akin says if not taken down, graffiti can send a message that communities are not taken care of, impacting the livability of the city.
City Councillor Amarjeet Sohi appreciates and acknowledges the work done by community members to remove their own graffiti.
“Our goal is to create a community that is clean, that is welcoming, that is livable. That is the vision of this City,” says Sohi.
“It’s certainly a testament to the great work of our enforcement staff, our community participation and the excellent programs that are run under the capital city clean up,” Akin adds.
“We can’t stop now that we’ve had good results,” Chapman says adding, “We need to be diligent about removing (graffiti) and preventing it.”
She says a follow up audit will be done again for 2012.
Below you can see the statistics the city has provided on graffiti vandalism in Edmonton.
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