Graffiti causes headache for Newmarket homeowner
Yorkregion.com
Aug. 6, 2015
By Chris Simon
Patricia Bujko tried to turn a case of tagging into art.
The Newmarket woman, who has owned her Manning Crescent home for about five years, was notified by the town that a portion of her fence - which faces the Leslie Street and Birchwood Drive intersection - needed to be repaired, after someone tagged the structure with the word ‘VOLUMe’. The complaint was made about two years ago, she says.
But the town notice only arrived on July 17 and Bujko was given until the end of the month to comply. She grabbed buckets of purple and pink paint, encouraged her children to assist and together they fixed the fence. Or so they thought.
The family was told by a bylaw officer that the solution failed to conform to the town’s property standards rules, because the paint was not considered ‘uniform colour’. If someone complains about the new look, Bujko could be forced to repaint the fence a singular colour - otherwise the town will do the work at the family’s expense.
“Someone complained two years ago and we just received notice,” Bujko said. “It’s not a long time (to make repairs), but we managed. We fixed the fence and even the kids helped. It is what it is and we want to obey the law; it’s part of the town bylaw to keep your property in good working order. There’s nowhere in the bylaw about what uniform colour ‘is’. I don’t know what they mean; I haven’t received any answers. There’s a geometrical definition and that’s what we followed. Why is this happening at the moment?”
Town clerk Andrew Brouwer said no complaints have been received about the new paint job, so the municipality will try to work co-operatively toward a solution with the homeowners. However, bylaw officers are called to investigate graffiti incidents regularly.
“Graffiti is considered a blight and has to be removed; we deal with this daily,” he said. “She’s just another resident we have to deal with on this. (But) we haven’t really seen someone apply two colours to cover up graffiti. It’s not ‘colours’ with a plural, it’s ‘colour’ in the bylaw. That’s how the bylaw officer interpreted it. But there is not a formal definition in the bylaw.”
Bujko believes private residents are being held to a higher standard than municipal crews. While walking around Fairy Lake in recent days, she snapped photos of several town light poles and structures that have been ‘repaired’ after tagging. The paint used by municipal staff often does not blend with the colour of the structure.
“There’s a lot of damage on town property,” she said. “It’s not really been fixed.”
Brouwer said the paint doesn’t have to match the original colour of the structure. In the case of the fence, if only one of the colours had been used, it would technically conform to town rules.
“Maybe she raises a good point, but as it is right now, (the bylaw) implies a uniform colour,” he said. “You can’t match the same exact colour; you can’t reproduce concrete ... But the intent is uniformity. These are standards that reflect the interest of the community.”
Municipal staff plan to contact the homeowners over the matter.
“We’d like to continue to work with her,” he said. “We don’t want to create an adversarial situation; we’re interpreting the bylaws the best we understand them to be. She’s not being singled out. Rather than going to the media and complaining about how the town’s reacted, maybe we have a conversation about it.”
More than two years ago, a 22-year-old Newmarket man was charged with mischief over $5,000, after allegedly spraying the tag at more than 20 sites in town.
While the family could seek financial compensation in civil court, they’re hesitant to do so.
