Historical murals (left and above) help to keep Beach Haven attractive and clean. Photo / Dean Purcell
Two years of defence against graffiti vandals is bringing visual relief to communities used to waking up to a blight of spray-painted tags spoiling streets, buildings and parks.
Graffiti covering the equivalent area of 54 rugby fields was removed from public view under Auckland Council's regional "zero tolerance" prevention plan introduced in July 2013.
The plan also brought a 13 per cent drop in the annual number of graffiti incidents - on top of 13 per cent fewer incidents in the first year.
"But it's still 94,464 incidents a year," said Brian Taylor, the council's community safety programme manager.
"Although our contractors are focused on graffiti and are out there trying to find and remove it, they can only cover the main routes and high-priority areas.
"We need to move forward, with community organisations adopting areas and ringing the council call centre to make us aware of spots we're not so proactive in."
Requests for removal service dropped by 2 per cent to 3625 during the year, and an independent audit of the 21 local boards on how graffiti-free their area looked scored 94 out of 100.
This was higher than other cities using the same measure and higher than Auckland rated in 2010.
That year, 67 per cent of those surveyed raised graffiti vandalism as an issue in the quality of life and as the fourth largest issue in perceptions of safety.
But while the council's 2014 incident figures show big improvements in eradication in local board areas such as Waitemata, Orakei and Papakura, for Henderson-Massey the figure has risen 13 per cent to 15,438 incidents.
This is more than Waitemata, which includes the CBD "hot spots" (walls that are tagged a lot) and which reduced by 36 per cent in the first year and by 8 per cent last year.
Henderson-Massey board chairman Vanessa Neeson supports the plan. "Our biggest problem is kids having huge fun riding free on the train coming in from other areas and causing havoc.
"Our removal team's work is amazing but you come the next day and see the kids have gone to town again in the dark of night. It's upsetting that ratepayers' money has to be used to clean it up."
Murals, council-approved ones, are effective prevention tools on walls that are tagged often.
The council had a partnership with Unitec and the Kakano Youth Arts Collective to produce a series of murals in Henderson and also to offer youths a positive way to show their creativity by working with professional artists to prepare for art study at Unitec next year.
Through the eyes of a policeman, graffiti is a sign more serious crimes are prevalent in an area.
"It means people are lurking around who might break into cars or steal from residents," said Counties-Manukau crime prevention officer Senior Constable Garry Boles.
He praised swift removals by contractor Manukau Beautification Trust and residents' voluntary clean-ups in neighbourhoods and shopping centres.
"If a community cleans up its area, we find a massive drop in crime because local people are saying 'it's our area and we're looking after it'. It makes someone feel uncomfortable about doing crime because there's a good chance they will be caught by locals and reported."
He's an advocate for the principles of crime prevention through environmental design. These transform poorly lit and hidden places where people get up to mischief into open areas that can be seen from neighbouring homes.
An alley can shed its graffiti lining by replacing wooden fences with wire fences. White walls of factories, attractive to taggers, can be shielded by hedges and shrubs.
But as one avenue for showing graffiti shuts down, or is restricted by its removal within hours, another opens.
"A disturbing trend is where taggers take a photo of graffiti, upload it on Facebook and it becomes kind of art versus graffiti. The graffiti is there, though it's been taken away from the place where it was done. It lasts longer."
In 2008 Parliament made provisions for banning spray can sales to under-18s. But Mr Bowles laments the lack of restraints on getting paint, such as low prices.
Recent website catalogues show a three for $12 deal for quick-drying enamel spray cans at one outlet and at another, two for $25.
"There's a problem when guys walk out of a shop with a carton of spray cans for $30 to $50 and can use them to do $10,000 damage."
Enforcing vandalism laws and holding offenders to account is a key measure for rating the council's $4.1 million a year plan. Detective work to gather evidence is helped by an upgraded electronic data base StopTags, which holds incident details and photographs.
Contractors and neighbourhood policing teams share that information on offenders.
"Everyone needs to remember the difference between art and graffiti vandalism is permission," said the council's senior prevention adviser, Rob Shields.
"We encourage the community to report graffiti, not to tolerate it and together we can work to eliminate the problem."
People scrubbing off graffiti on their property, or seeing it and saying nothing, means the council may not know there is a problem in that area and someone gets away with it.
The police are the prosecuting agency for graffiti vandalism and intentional damage offences.
Each month of last year, the council's enforcement contractor passed Auckland police four reports with evidence of offending.
Enforcement actions may result in family conferences, community service orders, warnings, diversion orders, fines and, for serious repeat offending, prison sentences.
The most significant case was last year where evidence from the council led to Ross James Goode, 25, appearing in the Auckland District Court to be found guilty on seven charges of intentional damage.
It was alleged that over three years, Goode tagged variations of the word "Gosys" more than 800 times. A handwriting expert narrowed that number to 450.
The sentence converted a potential jail term of 17 months to eight months' home detention, 150 hours of community work and repayment of $14,000 to Auckland Council for removal, with time to pay.
Glass or surface etching and gouging is another type of graffiti vandalism and is more expensive to repair than paint.
Mr Shields said private and business owners made their own arrangements with removal companies and lodged complaints with the police.
However, the council's graffiti enforcement service was available to them "as this type of graffiti vandalism is also perpetrated by the vandals who use spray cans and big marker pens".
Auckland Transport said it was putting a sacrificial film on glass surfaces to foil etching on bus shelters as well as treating surfaces with anti-graffiti paints at railway stations and on trains.
A special facility at Wiri washes off graffiti sprayed on trains and the new electric trains are monitored by cameras.
Kiwi Rail reports tags on its infrastructure to the police. Communities liaison manager Gill Evans said its network patrols did "rapid removal".
However, she said people doing graffiti were trespassing, which was the main cause of death on the network and a real worry with the introduction of the quiet electric trains.
Ask Jill Nerheny how the North Shore suburb of Beach Haven beat a bad graffiti problem and she says "because kids feel ownership and pride in where they live".
Encouraging pride, whether it's giving out "I love my Neighbourhood" signs or scrubbing out painted tags, is a goal of the Kaipatiki Community Facilities Trust managed by Ms Nerheny.
It's contracted to the Kaipatiki Local Board to bolster the community with activities, events, projects and programmes in Beach Haven, Birkdale, Northcote and Glenfield.
The Auckland Council's 2013 plan to get regional consistency in graffiti removal left many community trusts without contracts and council funding to continue local removal.
However, Ms Nerheny said the trust was determined not to bow out of removal after years of success.
"We had all that intel from being a grassroots operation and did not want to lose that and stop doing what we considered was a key factor in crime reduction."
The trust also had a good relationship with the main contractor, North Auckland Recreational Services, and was able to continue work out of the contractor's scope.
The arrangement is now held up as a shining example of co-operation between main contractors and community groups. The contractors do main roads and council facilities and the trust does private property fences and big corporate buildings, power transformers and poles.
"If there is graffiti on a Lake Rd building in the morning, we will clean up so people do not see it again on their way home."
In the first two years of the plan, Kaipatiki, with a population of 83,000 and the fifth largest local board, has been among Auckland's lowest for graffiti incidents, with 2022 incidents in 2013-2014 and lately a 15 per cent drop to 1716.
"I say, 'Don't get complacent, because it comes in waves - like crime waves.' You get a group of kids coming through the hormonal stage and away they go."
The trust continues to have murals painted in shopping centres. This "wall art", as Ms Nerheny calls it, relates to local history, is painted by an artist helped by volunteers and is sponsored by the council and local businesses.
In Beach Haven, she says the emphasis was on changing the thinking of the community.
The trust's youth development workers go to primary schools and help pupils form views about graffiti, how it affects the look of their neighbourhood and how to report it.
"The kids who might be tagging are not, because they have gone through learning about having pride in their neighbourhood. They are acknowledging they want to be a nice place, not full of tags," she says.
"When I get the old photos out it shows graffiti was horrific."
For the Beach Haven community, reduced graffiti and vandalism is saving ratepayers' money and raising house prices.
What is the prevention plan?
Focus on the Three Es: eradication, enforcement, education.
How can I help?
Report graffiti or become a volunteer by calling Auckland Council on 09 301 0101 and if you see a vandal in action call 111. Adopt a spot: The council supplies paint and brushes and roller sleeves.
Is council removal free?
It is free for private property on immediate street frontages, adjacent walls and fences on residential and street frontages of small business properties plus adjacent walls and fences.
Large corporate buildings pay private contractors but the council can help with prevention.
Former Act president's lawyer claims sentence was too harsh, calls for home detention.