More complaints about graffiti are being made in Ottawa, but some BIA and city officials say it's not all bad.

Graffiti complaints to Ottawa By-law Service have increased so far in 2018, with the majority of the growth being in the city’s ByWard Market and Vanier neighbourhoods, data kept by the City of Ottawa shows.

There were 60 graffiti-related complaints in the city’s Rideau-Vanier Ward between January and April 2018, almost three times more than the same time last year. By-law received 78 complaints about graffiti in Rideau-Vanier in all of 2017, according to statistics released by the city about complaints to 311.

Nathalie Carrier, the Executive Director of the Quartier Vanier Business Improvement Association, said there is a wide variety of graffiti that gets reported to the BIA. It falls into two main categories, she said. Some of it is classic negative graffiti, tagging and anything gang-related, but some has artistic value.

The BIA, which covers businesses on Beechwood Avenue, Montreal Road and McArthur Avenue, will pay for graffiti removal if one of its members is affected. Carrier said the company Goodbye Graffiti comes within 24 hours to remove or cover-up the graffiti.

Mathieu Fleury, the Rideau-Vanier's city councillor, said the issue of graffiti is something he hears about and the increase in complaints could be because more people are reporting graffiti when they see it.

There were 348 graffiti complaints to By-Law Services across Ottawa in 2017, up slightly from 345 in 2016, according to the data kept by the city. So far, there have been 125 in the first four months of 2018.

Ottawa has recently seen a number of racist graffiti instances, most recently in late April in when three people were charged for spraying offensive graffiti in and around Springhurst Park.

Carrier said the negative forms of graffiti can have a long-term impact on businesses because of the way it makes a community look and feel. She said though the BIA has started taking a more positive approach to graffiti, which is helping to reduce the overall amount of undesirable tagging.

“We actually don’t feel that street art, as long as it’s legitimate and respectful and is done in conjunction with business owners-- we don’t think that it is a bad thing at all,” Carrier said.

Quartier Vanier has started commissioning graffiti murals in the ward to reduce the amount of vandalism that occurs. She said this kind of respectful art helps curb the amount of negative graffiti that goes up. The BIA is on the verge of hiring a “guerilla artist” over the summer to paint small pieces around the area, she said.

“If you take an artist and give them legitimate canvases on which to produce their art -- in which their art can be viewed and shared with their community -- it does have a much more positive effect than somebody operating clandestinely,” Carrier said.

Fleury agreed and said blank walls can be a canvas for people to paint negative graffiti or to tag, but filing those spaces with commissioned art can reduce the temptation.

“We have amazing new murals that keep popping up left and right which contribute to beautifying our community,” he said.

One way to remove negative graffiti is with a free graffiti removal kit from the City of Ottawa. Dean Johnson, a City of Ottawa public realms specialist, said in an email the kits include graffiti removal wipes, gloves, safety glasses, face mask, scouring pad, paper towels, a plastic garbage bag, removal instructions and safety information. Johnson said in 2017 the city distributed 139 kits, while in 2018 the city has so far received a total of 112 requests for one.

He said the best way to manage graffiti is to remove it quickly after it goes up, which reduces the chances more will happen in the same spot.

“This makes the property less desirable to graffiti vandals and sends a clear message that defacing property is not acceptable,” Johnson said.

Fleury said keeping public property clean is important, and encourages people to work with the community and city rather than tagging random things.

“We try to keep our city our streets and our public infrastructure clean,” Fleury said. “We invest significantly in those infrastructure pieces and we want to make sure they’re up kept.”