Mr. Robert Moss:

On behalf of the environmental focus group of the Dublin City Community Forum, I thank the joint committee for this opportunity to submit a statement.

I will outline some general considerations for future Dublin docklands development, which is an area of interest to us. The regional planning guidelines for the greater Dublin area called for an increase in the overall density of development, which will lead to a more compact urban form. By necessity, this leads to many more people living within the city without the amenity of a private garden or access to any green space of their own. We can see that happening already, with thousands of people living in apartment blocks.

If we accept that there is a need for a more urbanised lifestyle in the future, then this urban lifestyle has to be more attractive in order for people to buy into it. We feel that amenities such as community gardens contribute greatly to the urban quality of life within Dublin.

There is already a policy within the Dublin city plan, namely GC16, which exists to support the provision of community gardens, allotments, local markets and pocket parks. These are green spaces for people who live in the city. As the current Bill calls for the cessation of a master plan from the 1997 Act, we highlight the importance of having an appropriate replacement. We recommend that Dublin City Council's own city plan be used for guidance for appropriate future developments within the docklands.

Urban growing by voluntary groups is expanding within Dublin. I rewrote this Dublin guide to community gardening in October 2013 and 46 garden projects approached me for a free listing. This compares to only two community gardens a decade ago. There are now at least 46. This is something that is growing in Dublin and it is something the people who live there want. In essence, we are talking about urban agriculture being used to rethink Dublin's public open spaces and, in doing so, improving Dublin visibly and strengthening its social capital as well. The silver lining of the recession has been the many community improvement initiatives carried out at grassroots level right across Dublin and not just in the docklands area. Such initiatives have often been undertaken by people who have been made redundant, but who have skills and time on their hands. They have used that time, knowledge and skill to improve their own environment. They have done this without any direct strategic support. Due to the hard work of many groups and individuals, we have now seen the creation of around 40 community garden projects across Dublin in the last ten years. These are delivering environmental improvements and biodiversity enhancement within the city for us all. They support resource-use management and the reduction of resource use, as well as improving and enhancing our communities and developing social capital. This is a kind of soft infrastructure that is too often missing from planning considerations, probably because it is hard to commoditise community development. It is hard to put a price on it. On a modest scale, we are here to represent to the joint committee the intelligent use of two of Dublin's greatest assets: unused land and unused labour. Future developments within the docklands must allow residents to interact with their environment through horticulture. This should not be the exclusive preserve of those who are rich enough to own their own private gardens.