Anyone playing the games can request removal of a Wayspot, not just the person who submitted it. I request removal of many Wayspots, none of which I submitted. Staff does make the decisions on these removal requests, so if staff did side with whoever submitted the request, it was removed by Niantic in the end.
Once a Wayspot has been approved, we don’t have much control over it, and anyone can submit edits or removal requests; edits may get approved or rejected by either the review community or ML (the AI system), whereas all removal requests are reviewed by staff, and they are the ones that make the final removal request decision.
I gave the 2017 example as it was the best to show all of the graffiti, not just the 1 panel you submitted. The latest Street View doesn’t show all 3 panels, and all 3 to me say that this isn’t unique art but vandalism, which isn’t allowed per criteria. The other 2 panels have tags on them, clearly vandalism, not placed there with permission. The XUPA marking at the bottom left also looks like a tag, although not the same as the others. Here is the most recent Street View.
Since I noted the tags on these panels, I do want to provide the criteria clarification for vandalism in the Unique Art clarification, which does come from Niantic themselves. This may help better understand why this may have been removed.