At the 9 April 2024 Council Meeting, Council endorsed Yarra’s first Street Garden Guidelines.

Thanks for providing your feedback on our draft Street Garden Guidelines. This consultation is now closed.

In November - December 2023, we asked you to review the draft Street Garden Guidelines and let us know if we’ve covered everything that needs to be considered when planning a street garden.

Read the Engagement Report to find out more about what we heard.

Final Street Garden Guidelines

Using your feedback, we’ve developed Street Garden Guidelines along with a 'recommended' and 'do not plant' list of species, to provide direction to residents who want to plant gardens within our streetscapes.

From June 2024, residents can access the 'Online Yarra Street Garden Questionnaire' on the Yarra City Council website to determine if their proposed street garden complies with the guidelines and is supported by Council.

What are street gardens?

A street garden is any non-edible community planting in Council managed streetscapes. These gardens are supported by Council and cared for by the community.

Examples of street gardens include planting within the lawn nature strip in front of your house or planting within an existing tree plot.

Why do we need guidelines?

There are many benefits to street gardens which not only beautify our streetscapes but also cool our city and provide habitat to increase local biodiversity.

We’re supportive of these community street gardens, however there are several issues that need to be considered when planting a street garden to ensure that our streetscapes remain safe, accessible and that plantings do not damage other assets including our street trees.

We currently don’t have any guidelines which provide advice on what needs to be considered when planning a community garden on Yarra’s streets. To ensure our community has all the information they need to create a successful and compliant street garden, we have created draft Street Garden Guidelines.

These Guidelines are based on a review of all other inner-metropolitan Council nature strip and street garden guidelines and are in line with these existing examples. Our Guidelines also take into consideration the health and safety of our residents and visitors to Yarra, as well as supporting local biodiversity.