Penetanguishene councillors wants staff to complete the picture in the draft property standards bylaw that addresses graffiti on private property.
"I have some concerns about the costs of cleaning up the graffiti," said Coun. Jessica Klug at this week's council meeting. "It feels a little bit unfair to have someone clean up graffiti on their property when it wasn't their fault to begin with."
The staff report included sample quotes from a company around how much it would cost to remove various types of graffiti. According to the presented quotes, some property owners could end up paying close to $600 to have their property cleaned.
"I'm looking to see if we can find a way to possibly fund it ourselves or do a shared cost with the property owner," said Klug.
Coun. Brian Cummings, who had initiated the process around the graffiti bylaw dealing with tagged private properties, also felt there were some pieces missing.
"Our job is to find out how we're going to enforce it, whether it's a shared cost or not," he said. "It's great to put it into a bylaw and the legalese is there but what policies do we have to enforce or encourage the graffiti to be removed."
Cummings said a policy needs to be developed around what the town expects of private-property owners whose properties have been tagged.
"This bylaw tells us what we want but not how," he said. "The bylaw itself doesn't say when or how to get rid of the graffiti, just says appropriate measures shall be taken. We don't know what that is, because there's no policy around it. We make the laws but there are no procedures or policies in place that help people."
Andrea Betty, director of planning and community development, said graffiti isn't a typical property standards matter, such as residents neglecting to mow their front lawn.
"It is a property affected by a crime," she said. "That's why we did want to bring that memo forward to give some sense of the cost for the business. The other mention is graffiti happening on public utilities. Those are pieces of equipment that get tagged all the time and we need an approach to that, too."
Betty said staff will take another look at the draft Property Standards bylaw to include information that answers concerns voiced by Klug and Cummings. The new draft bylaw will be presented at a later meeting.
