Allotment Garden Dwellings: Exploring Tradition and Legal Framework

Abstract

At the end of 19 th century, the removal of city walls and introduction of mass transport in European cities provided the opportunity to expand cities in green suburban areas. Colonies of small houses with garden plots and allotment gardens developed during this era thus represent a new type of settlement, where green infrastructure (gardens) and allotment dwellings are closely intertwined. The gardens in these settlements were originally based on the notion of subsistence economy, providing food and emergency accommodation in periods of crisis. This paper examines the evolution of allotments and particularly allotment dwellings in Germany and Austria by matching the actual practices of gardeners with the formation of and changes in the legal framework. The legislation and zoning regulations, which were predominantly established after the fact, reveal an ongoing process of negotiation between informal practices and planning authorities.

An Analysis of the Changes in the Structure of Allotment Gardens in Poland and of the Process of Regulating Legal Status

“…During the early stages, allotment land use was transitory, precarious and often only partly legal [32,33]. At the turn of the century, allotment tenants were already organized in several national federations [34]. At the beginning of the twentieth century allotment gardening gained popularity because of its capacity to provide both shelter and food during hard times.…”

“…Therefore, the decision was made to investigate the situation of allotment gardens in other European countries. Table 1 illustrates the selected criteria characterizing the legal and factual status of allotment gardens in some European countries, developed based on [29,30,33,34,[42][43][44].…”

“…As far as changes in the area of allotment gardens in the analyzed countries are concerned, the situation is stable only in Austria and Germany where the majority of allotment gardens are located on municipally owned land, and have highly evolved organizational forms to protect allotment gardens from conversion into building sites or road infrastructure [30,34]. In other countries, there is an unfavorable tendency to decrease the areas of allotment gardens [27,29,[42][43][44].…”

How are allotment gardens managed? A comparative study of usage and development in contemporary urban space in Germany and Poland

“…Other studies also confirm this need to protect AGs in the urban space, e.g: planning protection (Poniży and Stachura 2017;Szkup and Pytel, 2016), legal protection (Calvet-Mir and March, 2019;Trembecka and Kwartnik-Pruc, 2018;Weirich, 2007) and historical and cultural protection (Acton, 2011). Studies by Lorbek and Martinsen (2015), Spilková and Vágner (2016), Gibas and Boumová (2020) also raise the issue of AGs protection in a situation of increasing urbanisation and investment pressure. Simon-Rojo et al (2016) indicate that following the collapse of the communist system in Central and Eastern Europe, the structures of allotment gardens changed dramatically, e.g.…”

Translating land justice through comparison: a US–French dialogue and research agenda

“…For example, Indigenous-led food sovereignty efforts in Canada and Australia can be points of reflection for similar efforts in the US (Daigle 2017 ; Porter et al 2020 ). There are also long histories of urban gardening on allotment gardens in Germany and Austria, among other countries (Lorbek and Martensen 2015 ; Tornaghi and Certomà 2018 ) that may offer US and French practitioners ideas of how to better address the need for permanent land access while German and Austrian scholars might reflect on whether such interventions are actually fostering more equitable land access across racial and socioeconomic divides. Similarly, work on "quiet sustainability" practices beyond the farm and garden that have been studied in Eastern Europe (e.g., Smith and Jehlička 2013 ), may provide insights for US and French scholars, who have tended to ignore such diverse forms of provisioning.…”