Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

269. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he is aware of concerns that the draft planning Bill has reduced legal protection for the evolution of community gardens, which are playing a growing role in our communities in promoting sustainability and valuing the regenerative power of nature; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9524/23]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Schedule 1 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as inserted through the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2010 allows for “Reserving land for use and cultivation as allotments and regulating, promoting, facilitating or controlling the provision of land for that use.”

The identification and implementation of recreational and amenity spaces is a matter for local authorities, primarily through City/County Development Plans and identifying land for allotment development in a development plan is a reserved function of the elected members in considering and making the plan. The provision of allotment or similar facilities on local authority land is a matter for each individual local authority including their elected members and is subject to availability of resources and community inputs and support for such proposals.

The draft Planning and Development Bill 2022 was published in January and a final Bill will be published once pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill has been finalised. It is intended that the final Bill will then commence in the Houses of the Oireachtas with the intention that it will be enacted by this summer, subject to the Oireachtas schedule. There are some further changes to be made to the draft Bill before the final Bill is published and I can confirm that allotments will be provided for in the final Bill, in line with existing provisions.