Committee backs plan to let residents send photos to city

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The mobile phone could become one of Toronto’s best weapons in the war to eradicate graffiti, Toronto’s licensing and standards committee has decided.

The committee has voted to support a proposal by Ward 17 (Davenport) Councillor Cesar Palacio to set up a system that will let residents use their mobile telephone cameras to report graffiti.

The details of the system have yet to be worked out, but the proposal was inspired by a system already in place in Lewisham, a borough in London, England.

There, mobile phones can be loaded with a piece of software that will let their owners send snapshots of graffiti-covered utilties or other buildings to the municipality, which then deals with the graffiti.

The system makes it easier to report graffiti than it currently is – and might also provide a degree of accountability.

The system might be rolled out with the city’s 311 system – but in the meantime, the committee voted to include it in a city graffiti removal pilot project.

That pilot will see the city issue work orders intensively in a small area – pushing the Toronto Transit Commission and Toronto Hydro in particular to deal with graffiti on their property.

Committee chair Howard Moscoe said the contrast between the new system and how things work now should be dramatic.

“What happens today is if you discover graffiti on a hydro box and report it to municipal licensing and standards, we send out an inspector, never issue a work order and six years later the same graffiti may still be on the pole,” said Moscoe.

He pointed out that the new system should speed everything up.

“If you see some graffiti, particularly on public property, you just take your cell phone out, snap a picture, e-mail it to staff and staff put in place a mechanism for getting rid of it,” said Moscoe, who represents Ward 15 (Eglinton-Lawrence).

The photographs would be uploaded to a website tied to a map of the city, and once staff had dealt with them, the phone owner would receive another photograph, showing the clean area, via e-mail.

“Before and after pictures – I wish I got that response when I put in a complaint,” said Moscoe.
Committee member and Ward 34 (Don Valley East) Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong supported the plan.

“I think it’s a good idea because frankly I don’t think the city is dealing effectively with the issue of graffiti and neither are utilities,” he said. “We have to raise the level of consciousness that graffiti is a problem.”