We've been talking about the impending Mural Ordinance being close to a final vote for years now, and maybe--just maybe--we mean it this time. Yesterday the city's Planning and Land Use Management Committee passed the draft ordinance on to the full City Council, which is scheduled to vote on it on August 20. The new ordinance comes just 10 short years after LA imposed a moratorium on new murals (a not-always-enforced moratorium; it's estimated that there have been 300 new works since then), and would both protect existing murals and allow for new, legally-protected works of street art. According to the LA Times, murals were banned in 2003 because some were sneakily being used as advertising. But with new measures aimed at keeping commerce out of our street art, the ordinance's passage is no sure thing. The stickiest point is whether to allow murals on single-family houses (we're calling it the Chris Brown Rule); one proposed version of the new ordinance allows for it, but some neighborhood groups want a way to keep them out of residential neighborhoods. The proposed rules require all new murals to be registered and community hearings to be held before work can commence.
· Move to allow new L.A. murals advances at City Hall [LAT]
· Mural Ordinance (pdf) [City Clerk]
· Mural Ordinance Archives [Curbed LA]
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