Co-ops and Condos Face New Anti-Graffiti Law

Local Law 65, enacted October 7, 2009, and taking effect April 7, 2010, amended the New York City Administrative Code so that property owners no longer have to file waivers to have the city remove graffiti for free. Now, co-op and condo boards and others have to respond, generally within 35 days, after the city contacts you about your graffiti — whether it's a vandal's unsightly tag or a prize mural.

Here's how the it works: The city has roving vans, called Street Conditions Observation Units (SCOUT; see image below), that since 2007 have been scheduled to travel every block in the city every month, reporting quality of life conditions to the city's 311 helpline. SCOUT graffiti sightings get reported to Graffiti Free NYC, a partnership of the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit, the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) and the Department of Sanitation.

Once Graffiti Free NYC contacts you, your co-op or condo board has three options:

• If you want the city to clean the graffiti, you do nothing. Your building will be added to the cleaning queue after 35 days.

• Your second choice is to remove the graffiti yourself, in the manner you prefer and that you find safest for you building's walls. If you want to retain that control, you have to call 311 with have 35 days. If you don't, the city decides whether to power-wash your walls, which can damage older brickwork particularly if not done with care, or paint over the graffiti. When responding to a city notice, you can select "paint" as an option and indicate a preferred color. If you don't specify a color, the Graffiti Free NYC staff will attempt to match the paint color as best they can.

• The third option, for buildings specifically wanting to keep graffiti murals or even other kinds of outdoor art the SCOUT vans may report, is to call 311 within 35 days and specifically instruct the city not to remove the art — and then hope for the best, since bureaucracies don't always work as they're supposed to, and word may not necessarily get to the guys with the paintbrushes and power-washers. "For anything that looks like a mural or might be interpreted as a mural, there are much stronger protocols," an EDC spokesperson says, though he did not have those protocols immediately available.

Unanswered Questions

Some questions crop up. "Is it just the part of the property facing the sidewalk [that's being targeted]?" wonders veteran Manhattan real estate attorney Bruce Levinson. "I think there may be issues with access and the right of the city to enter onto someone's property without permission. Sometimes you have an alley going to a courtyard in back and there's visible graffiti that's clearly within the property line and not in any public area." The EDC spokesperson said he would research that issue.

Peter Lehr, director of management at Kaled Management, says he appreciates the city's initiative but prefers a hands-on approach. "Kaled's position on graffiti is: You see it, get rid of it. Graffiti artists will come tag a building and our superintendents know that the next day, whatever you need to get rid of it, you've got."

In Elmhurst, Queens, he notes, "We have two buildings that for about a three-week period, every day the super was out there either painting it or using Graffiti Goo" until the taggers gave up. Perseverance is the key, Lehr says. "Whether you paint it or over it use removers, eventually you will win."

Keeping Control of Your Walls

The danger lies in overzealous enforcers doing things that may not be optimal for your building materials or your aesthetics. Bruce Pienkny, who helped found Graffiti Free NYC and now runs the private CitySolve cleaning company, told the New York Daily News that he cleaned over 30,000 buildings in 2009, generating two to three owners complaints — of which he's strikingly casual. "Do the work first and deal with the consequences later," he told the paper — a statement that appears to deprioritize the wishes the private building owners.

The best way for co-op and condo boards to keep control is to organize the board's response quickly — which, given the 35-day deadline, may mean consultation among board members before the monthly meeting can take place.

The city's Web site says that Graffiti Free NYC work-crew members "will make every effort to announce their arrival to the onsite contact" — a phrase that suggests they're not legally required to let you know they're there, but just to make a good-faith effort.

The upshot is that of April 7, boards must become proactive in order to control anti-graffiti efforts yourselves — unless you want to leave your building's condition in the hands of the city.