Green Belt Legislation Regulation: Comparative Legal Research

Abstract

Recently, legislative acts on the protection of the green belt have been increasingly adopted in various states. Using the legislation examples of the United Kingdom, the Canadian province of Ontario, and Russia, we have identified public relations that can be the subject of regulation of such legislation. Based on the analysis of typical legal conflicts, the problem areas which need the most attention of the legislator have been identified. The methods of differentiation of the legal regime for various areas within the green belt are investigated, taking into account their geographical features and specific management goals. The most promising areas for legal regulation that require the increased attention of legislators speak to the establishment of the procedures and criteria for excluding land plots from the green belt, the regulation of village development processes within the green belt, the establishment of a comprehensive list of agricultural types of permitted use, and the establishment of the procedure for the development of specialized plans or strategies for the use and protection of the green belt. The article offers solutions to these issues. The methodology of comparative law, including the functional method, was used in the study.

1. Introduction

The policy of protecting the green belt—the open undeveloped space around large cities—occupies a serious place on the environmental agenda and is one of the key environmental objectives of any metropolitan region. Currently, many specialized bodies and organizations are included in this field of activity around the world, a field in which many planners and environmentalists work (Fitzsimons et al. 2012; Mace 2018; Zhou et al. 2024).

The importance of green belt protection is justified by the fact that it is a part of the environment that performs ecological, socio-economic, aesthetic, and recreational functions, especially in big cities. The state of the environment and human health depends on the effectiveness of green belt protection measures (Chettry 2023; Han et al. 2022).

In most cases, the green belt is legally differentiated in order to protect the open space from development, curb the growth of the city, support the performance of environmental functions, and develop outdoor recreation and sports (Han and Go 2019; Kirby et al. 2024; Pourtaherian and Jaeger 2022; Siedentop et al. 2022; Zhou et al. 2024). These goals are achieved through a complex set of legal and management tools.

As security issues related to the green belt expand and become more complex and the typical conflicts of their participants are identified, the basics of these activities’ implementation have been legislated in several jurisdictions. In turn, this has required an understanding of the essence of the green belt policy not only by planners or environmentalists but also by lawyers. The absence of such an understanding may transform law from a driver of development into a hindrance to it, both as a consequence of unforeseeable developments in judicial practice and as a result of misinterpretation of the objectives of the executive branch as set out by the legislature.

Prompting us to investigate the issue of regulating legislation on the green belt was the adoption of Law No. 353-FZ in Russia on 17 June 2016, which became known as the “Green Shield Law1” in the press. The law caused a wide public outcry and its developers positioned the project as making significant changes in the life of Russian cities. However, compared with expectations, the result of its implementation was ultimately and unexpectedly modest, in fact serving only to enter the boundaries of the green belts into the register of borders of the Unified State Register of Real Estate (EGRN) and to strengthen the administrative responsibility for environmental offenses within the green belt. Of course, these issues are of great practical importance in Russian conditions, but this fact does not change the general conclusion, that the actual direction of changes was ultimately far narrower than the original intention.

The reason for the weak implementation of the law was the ill-considered goals and objectives associated with managing the green belts, as well as the unresolved issue of its relationship with other tools for protecting open space from development. The very concept of a green belt was not correlated with long-established legal phenomena—forest–park and green zones2 and land categories3. As a result, the specifics of the use of land and other natural resources provided for by this law have actually added almost nothing to the existing regulation.

This example shows how difficult it is to understand and implement a law if the subject matter of its regulation is ill-considered. The imperfection of the subject of regulation is characteristic of many laws in the environmental field due to the relative novelty of this branch of law. However, this factor does not contribute at all to the sustainability and effectiveness of regulation. Thus, Dan Tarlock (2004, p. 217) notes that, without a clear understanding and justification of the subject of regulation, environmental law will not be able to function sustainably, will be subject to fluctuations in political trends and depend on the role of environmentalism supporters. This is also true with regard to legislation on green belt protection, which is part of environmental protection legislation.

Within the framework of this article, we set ourselves the task of finding answers to a number of consistently posed questions, as follows:

• To what extent is there a need to fix the general rules of green belt policy at the legislative level rather than through planning and zoning acts?
• What is the subject of the regulation of green belt legislation?
• Can the protection regime be uniform for all green belts within the country, or should it be differentiated, taking into account the geographical features of individual sections of the territory?

In some countries, the concept of a green belt was not reflected in legislation, because they used other ways to protect open space, such as Soviet land categories or Japanese farmer support programs. It is important to identify these functional analogues in the jurisdictions we have studied for a deeper study of ways to protect the green belt, as well as in order to improve the mutual understanding of the legislation of other states.

In practice, green belts are attracting ever more attention; however, research on this topic is extremely insufficient. Therefore, studying the green belt issue is not only relevant, but also timely. The novelty of our study lies in the fact that the readers are presented with a unified conceptual framework for the green belt understanding and maintenance using the examples of Western countries and the Russian Federation, an undertaking which has no analogue in legal science. In the future, this can serve as a basis for scientific and practical developments.

2. Methods

To complete this task, we conducted a study of the legislation on the green belt of three jurisdictions: the UK, Canada (the province of Ontario, with its center in Toronto) and Russia. The United Kingdom is a global center for developing the concept of curbing urban growth and protecting the green belt from development, and for more than half a century it has implemented one of the toughest and most effective strategies for curbing the development of the green belt (Mace et al. 2016; Manns et al. 2014).

The province of Ontario has developed a holistic green belt management policy, but has already demonstrated high efficiency and an advanced approach in the field of green belt protection (Gayler 2009; Macdonald et al. 2021b). Russia is an interesting example of the use of functional analogues of the green belt, which are not always obvious to foreign specialists. Moreover, Russia is the native jurisdiction of the authors of the article.

Note that the study uses the legislation of the province of Ontario, and not Canada as a whole. The issues related to the protection of the Toronto greenbelt have been addressed through legislation at the provincial level, rather than at the national level. In Russia and the United Kingdom, the same issues are addressed at the level of national legislation. Therefore, these countries are taken into consideration as a whole for the purposes of comparison. In Russia, in addition to the federal level, there is also a regional level of legislation (for example, the city of Moscow and the Moscow region), which we utilized when needed. This feature (two states vs. one province within a state) should be taken into account. Ontario’s legislation was expected to be more specific and closer to the features of a separate green belt.

The article is divided into three semantic blocks. The first section briefly describes the historical circumstances and concepts that influenced the formation of legislation on the green belt. Their knowledge makes it possible to interpret the norms of legislation, taking into account the conditions in which they were adopted. In addition, this section reflects the peculiarities of different legal systems. These are of the greatest importance for Russia, whose justice system was inherited from the USSR with its own functional analogues of the green belt. The second semantic block is aimed at identifying the subject of the regulation of legislation on the green belt, that is, the range of public relations that can be regulated by such legislation. Here, our main objective was to identify the subject of legal regulation and not to compare specific legal decisions. The third semantic block is devoted to an in-depth comparison of solutions to some practical issues proposed in the legislation of the following three jurisdictions: the UK, Ontario and Russia. How can restrictions on the use of land and other natural resources that lie within and are common to the entire green belt be formulated? Is it possible to carry out construction activities in the interests of villagers within green belt boundaries? Finally, how do countries tackle the task of differentiating the legal regime while taking into account the geographical features of the territories included in the green belt?

We attempted to comply with the methodological principles of comparative legal research formulated by John Reitz (1998). The functional method of comparative law is also used here to identify the functional equivalents of the green belt used in the legislation of the USSR and, subsequently, Russia (Michaels 2005).

For an external researcher, it is challenging to carry out a full-fledged interpretation of the norms of foreign legislation and see the work of the entire legal system, though referring solely to the foreign experience can allow one to gain this knowledge. Publications of planners and lawyers from foreign countries were used as sources of information on the interpretation of legislation of those countries. At the same time, the publications of planners are of key importance in practice, as they apply green belt protection legislation often than lawyers. Similarly, planners are those who usually describe in their works the practice of applying such legislation, while also analyzing its effectiveness and evaluating its suitability for solving specific practical problems. Among other things, this indicates that the problems of preserving the green belt are still poorly considered by lawyers in the context of environmental or land law.

3. Findings

3.1. The General Context of Green Belt Legislation in the UK, Ontario and Russia

Each of the three legal systems taken for comparison was strongly influenced by the relevant concepts of the green belt and its own unique historical circumstances in terms of the formation of legal norms, which largely predetermined the substantial difference in the prescriptions of legislative acts.

The UK is the center for the development of a “modernist” green belt concept, in which the main task was recognized as curbing urban growth. This implies achieving a more compact form of the city, city–countryside separation, increasing the density of buildings, bringing workplaces closer to the places of residence of the population, and preventing the coalescence of settlements (Amati 2008; Macdonald et al. 2021a; Siedentop et al. 2022).

For many decades, the London green belt has been a model for the implementation of “growth restraint” policies that have influenced planning policies around the world (Amati 2008; Macdonald et al. 2021a; Siedentop et al. 2022). For more than seventy years, the British government and the Greater London Administration have consistently adhered to a policy of curbing the growth of the city and protecting the green belt from development. This has created an effective barrier to urban sprawl. However, severe legal restrictions, combined with a number of market and psychological factors, have caused a large-scale housing crisis throughout southern England (Gallent et al. 2022, pp. 19–24). In this regard, British planners and politicians faced the urgent task of finding ways out of the current crisis. In recent years, there has been a tendency to soften the green belt regime and enhance its versatility (Manns et al. 2014; Mace et al. 2016).

The peculiarity of the United Kingdom in comparison with Ontario and Russia is that the provisions on green belt protection are not established at the legislative level. They are recorded in the Development Plans and Regional Spatial Strategies developed on the basis of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004,4 as well as the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.5 The National Planning Policy Framework 2012 (NPPF) is used in the UK as a document defining the basis for regulating green belt protection policy. It is not a legislative act but a methodological recommendation issued by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and is used in the preparation of the above-mentioned plans. However, due to its great authority and influence on practice, we will use this document to compare it with the legislation of Canada and Russia.

The green belt of the city of Toronto in the Canadian province of Ontario, also known as the Greater Golden Horseshoe green belt, has historically been created in parts. This feature has been reflected in the legislation. Four specialized laws are still in force (Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act 19906, Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act 20017, green belt Act 20058, Places to Grow Act 20059), as are four specialized planning documents (Niagara Escarpment Plan 201710; Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan 201711; green belt Plan 201712; A Place to Growth: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe 202013).

Niagara Escarpment was the first to receive special treatment as a result of the adoption of the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act 1973 (NEPDA). In the same year, a specialized body was created to manage this territory—the Niagara Escarpment Commission. In 1990, Niagara Escarpment was granted UNESCO biosphere reserve status (Whitelaw and Hamilton 2003). Next, Oak Ridges Moraine 2001, a natural heritage system vital to providing clean water for Ontarians (Mausberg 2023), received special treatment. It was only in 2005 that the generalizing act on the green belt was adopted, which added a third part to the specified two parts of the green belt—protected countryside.

Figure 1 shows the ratio of the three parts of the Ontario Green Belt.

Unlike the London Metropolitan Green Belt, the Greater Golden Horseshoe green belt was originally created to be multifunctional. The task of curbing urban growth is set here along with protecting the habitat of animal and plant species, supporting farming and tourism, and ensuring the provision of ecosystem services (Macdonald et al. 2021b). Such a multiplicity of tasks makes it necessary to coordinate policies in different areas of the economy with the participation of a large number of stakeholders. This has led to the need to create a system of specialized plans and management bodies focused not so much on the tasks of compulsory containment of development, as on integrated management of the territory and stimulation of non-construction-related uses.

In Russia, the scientific concept of the green belt has been actively used by planners since the Soviet period of its development—the General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow in 1935 is widely known, the development of which was preceded by the preparation of several projects of the Moscow green belt (Tkachenko 2019). However, both lawyers and legislators in the Soviet Union associated the green belt with a space covered with forests and not just with open space, as was the case in most countries of Europe and North America. As a result, the green zone regime in the Soviet Union was established in forest legislation and was mainly associated with recreational forest management, that is, it served primarily the purposes of recreation and wellness (Krassov 1990). The Russian Federation (RF) has also inherited this approach.

To prevent the development of meadows, fields, swamps and other open landscapes not occupied by forests, the provisions of legislation on agricultural lands and specially protected natural areas were utilized in the USSR. This approach was also maintained in Russia, in which the regime of the two named categories of land does not allow construction as a general rule.

In 2016, a new concept was introduced into Russian legislation—the forest–park green belt (Chapter IX.1 of the Law “On Environmental Protection”15). At the same time, both mechanisms inherited from the Soviet Union have been preserved—the allocation of green zones and the regime of categories of agricultural land and specially protected natural territories. The new law can be understood in a broader way—it does not prohibit the inclusion of non-wooded space in the forest–park green belt. However, when determining the boundaries of forest–park green belts, experts from all the regions of Russia studied by us included only forest landscapes.

As a result, separately, the Russian forest–park green belt is not a functional analogue of the Western green belt. Such an analogue includes a set of the following four elements:

(A)

Forest–park green belt is defined in accordance with the provisions of Chapter IX.1 of the Law on Environmental Protection, introduced by Law No. 353-FZ of 17 June 2016;

(B)

Forests in forest–park zones defined in accordance with forest legislation (usually included in the forest–park green belt, but which may exist separately, for example, if the boundaries of the forest–park green belt around a particular city have not yet been determined);

(C)

Specially protected natural areas of federal and regional significance around the city, which are used to preserve forests and other open spaces (for example, a network of protected areas in some regions of Russia such as Moscow and the Moscow Oblast), are also an important element of the green belt; although not all regions follow this policy, these territories play a significant role in maintaining the ecological balance;

(D)

Agricultural lands: their legal regime does not allow construction that is not related to agricultural production (there are exceptions).

Having briefly outlined the special conditions for the development of legislation on the green belt in the three jurisdictions we study, we will proceed to compare the subject of regulation of legislation. In order to better identify the components of the subject of regulation and strengthen the comparative component of the study, the material is structured not by jurisdiction, but by comparison criteria.16

3.2. The Subject of Regulation of the Green Belt Legislation

Comparing the green belt legislation of Ontario and the United Kingdom makes it possible to reveal five types of public relations, the ordering of which may be the subject of regulation of such legislation. Because of the uniqueness of legal systems and the circumstances of the adoption of a particular act not all of these types of public relations can necessarily be regulated, but the formation of legal model for them at the legislative level is generally viable. The first two points in this section are described briefly, as separate subsections of this article are devoted to them further.

The regulation of land use, protection, and other natural resources in the greenbelt is the main focus of legislation governing the green belt. It is for this purpose that it is necessary to establish a greenbelt that is secured by legal force. Protection of the green belt from development cannot be ensured without significant restrictions on land ownership and such restrictions should be established only by law or on the basis of the provisions of the law.

Among the jurisdictions we have studied, the green belt legal regime is directly established only in Russia. In the Canadian province of Ontario, it is established in specialized plans, the procedure for the adoption of which is expressly provided for by law. In the United Kingdom, the local green belt regime is established in the context of development plans and regional spatial strategies, which are formulated on the basis of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.

The geographical features of the territories included in the green belt may cause the setting of specific management goals and, as a result, the establishment of specific restrictions on the use of land and other natural resources. For example, areas of rare animal species and rare plant species, wetlands and other particularly ecologically valuable territories may require special regulation. The lands valuable for agriculture and the recreation territories should be managed in different ways. We call the process of establishing the legal characteristics of various territories within the green belt differentiation, based on the understanding of this process proposed by Professor Irina Krasnova (2015).

Differentiation of the legal regime for individual components of the green belt can be established by directly fixing the composition of the green belt, as done in Ontario’s Green Belt Act 2005.17 There is no special procedure in London and Moscow, where instead the provisions of the legislation on conservative nature protection are used.18 However, there is a norm in Russian legislation on the correlation of the green belt provisions with the provisions of legislation on other types of territories (Russia).

The relations in the area of planning for the use and conservation of lands and other natural resources within the green belt. Legislation may provide for the development of specialized plans or strategies for the green belt as a whole or its component parts. The following elements can be provided: (1) the content of the plan, (2) the competent authorities for its development and adoption, (3) the procedure for its adoption, (4) the relationship with other planning acts. An excellent example of a comprehensive, systematic and detailed solution to these issues is the legislation of the province of Ontario. Approximately 80% of the Green Belt Act 2005 is devoted to addressing these issues. The same is true for the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act 1990 and the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act 2001.

The legislation of the United Kingdom and Russia does not focus on planning the use of the green belt. This situation seems to be a deviation from the optimal understanding of the subject of regulation of the green belt legislation. The lack of norms on the issue under consideration reflects a lack of understanding of the importance of measures stimulating the development of activities permitted within the green belt compared with the prohibitive norms of legislation and zoning acts.19 In our opinion, planning for the use and preservation of the green belt, in conjunction with the presence of specialized management authorities and funding availability, is a crucial prerequisite for the success of green belt conservation efforts.

The relations in the area of the creation and functioning of the green belt management bodies. The norms on this issue were found only in the legislation of the province of Ontario,20 which provided for the creation of the Green Belt Council, an advisory body including representatives of various stakeholder groups. At the same time, key decision-making capabilities were retained by the government authorities of the province of Ontario (Macdonald et al. 2021b).

There are also similar advisory and coordinating bodies in the UK and Russia, but the procedure for their creation and scope of activity are not stipulated in green belt legislation. Since 1955, the London Green Belt Council, a voluntary umbrella organization for groups and individuals, has been operating in London, bringing together representatives of more than 100 organizations, and is constituted as a community interest company (CIC). In the territories under consideration in Russia, the management of the forest–park green belt is carried out by the Forestry Committee of the Moscow Region, which is subordinate to the government of the Moscow Region. The committee has a public council that ensures interaction with various stakeholders.21

The creation of such advisory and coordinating bodies that complement the system of executive authorities seems important, taking into account the need to coordinate the interaction of various groups of stakeholders with opposing interests. However, unlike the procedure for planning the use and protection of the green belt, the procedure for creating such bodies may not be disclosed in the green belt legislation, as there is no serious need for this. This issue can be resolved in the process of law enforcement based on the provisions of constitutional, administrative or civil legislation.

The relations in the area of the initial creation of the green belt or its complete elimination. This issue has been resolved in the most detail in Russian legislation,22 although some provisions are also available in the UK.23 The increased attention of the Russian legislator to this issue is characteristic of a specific historical moment. This is explained by the attempts of Russian legislators to stimulate the creation of forest–park green belts instead of previously used functional analogues—green zones and networks of regional specially protected natural territories.

In addition to the actual procedure for creating a green belt, the legislation establishes the criteria that land plots included in the boundaries of the green belt must meet. This is important because these features can be used as criteria for making a decision on the creation of a green belt and its initial boundaries. Criteria can be positive (determining what should be located on green belt lands) or negative (determining what should not be located on green belt lands).

In Russian legislation, positive criteria are outlined broadly—referring to land plots “on which forests, bodies of water or parts thereof, natural landscapes, and territories of green spaces are located within urban areas”.24 However, in addition to these, eight negative criteria are provided, among which, for example, is the presence of capital construction facilities on a land plot, its provision for subsurface use or withdrawal for state or municipal needs.25 In the UK, there is also a general rule not to include land designated for development in the green belt (paragraph 148 (d) NPPF), along with a more abstract negative criterion—referring to the need to “not include land which it is unnecessary to keep permanently open” (paragraph 148 (b) NPPF).

Sometimes legislation may establish the procedure for fixing the boundaries of the green belt when it is created. For example, Russian legislation requires the mandatory inclusion of information on the boundaries of forest and park green belts in the Register of Boundaries as part of the Unified State Real Estate Register.26 These norms were introduced only in 2023 (by Law No. 66-FZ of 18 March 2023), before which there was a gap in legislation for about seven years, which gave rise to extensive and contradictory judicial practice (Ignatyeva 2023). We believe that the urgency of this issue is related to specific Russian circumstances—the need for large-scale work on reviving the system of the cadastral registration of lands and the registration of various types of borders in the Unified State Register of Real Estate, which was not in demand during the Soviet period of Russia’s development, and ensuring the relevant information is up to date.

Relations in the area of the exclusion of certain land plots from the green belt. One of the properties of the green belt is the relative stability of its borders.27 This property must be provided with the help of legal guarantees. In each of the three jurisdictions we have studied, the stability of borders is ensured through a different set of legal guarantees. Among them are the following:

(a)

the requirement of stability of the total green belt area: in one form or another, such a requirement is stipulated in the legislation of all three compared jurisdictions28 (in Russia, it is expressly provided for the need to include other areas in the boundaries of the green belt if necessary to withdraw a certain area (part 9 of Article 62.2 of the Environmental Protection Law 2002), and in Canada, similarly, there is a law enforcement practice29);

(b)

the establishment of a list of circumstances that must be proved in order to make a decision, these should include the following: the presence of exceptional circumstances suggesting the impossibility of meeting the need for land without vacating green belt land, the impossibility of meeting the need for land for development by using brownfield sites or weakly basic lands or optimizing the density of development in other areas of the territory, etc.30 (the establishment of these types of guarantees is important, as they describe the subject of proof in the course of subsequent procedures; the fact that norms of this type were discovered only in UK legislation is surprising—this issue is of key importance and should be resolved at the highest possible regulatory level);

(c)

the establishment of criteria to be met by land plots proposed for exclusion from the green belt, for example, in paragraph 147 of the British NPPF, these lands are defined as “land which has been previously-developed and/or is well-served by public transport;” in the other two jurisdictions studied, such norms could not be found (we fully agree with experts who consider it important to establish such criteria in legislation (Clayton 2023). As a result, Cheshire and Buyuklieva (2019) propose to use as such a criterion the location of the site at a distance of up to 800 m from stations providing arrival to a major city within 45 min, while the specified lands should not have a high environmental value, “so no building on National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty or public recreation areas;”

(d)

procedural guarantees: the establishment of a high level of decision-making;31 the obligation to consult with relevant environmental authorities, including bodies responsible for managing green belts;32 the obligation to conduct public consultations;33 and the obligation to inform all relevant public authorities and municipalities,34 inviting them to submit their comments, etc. The legislation of the province of Ontario pays great attention to procedural guarantees. Perhaps this is due to the scandalous exclusion of 15 plots of land from the green belt in 2022 and their subsequent return after an audit by Ontario’s Auditor General—it was after this case that the procedural provisions of the Green Belt Act 2005 were significantly altered.35 It seems that, in order to maximize the effectiveness of procedural guarantees, decision-making criteria should be established simultaneously (as per the previous two paragraphs).

Thus, the subject of regulation of the legislation on the green belt includes five types of public relations. However, in modern legal systems, legislative acts usually include not only regulatory norms, but also norm definitions and norm principles (Kozhevnikov 2021). There are such norms in the legislation regarding the green belt. In all three of the studied jurisdictions, the official definition of the green belt and the goals of green belt management are established (the latter we qualify as norm principles).

4. Discussion

4.1. The Green Belt Regime

The basis of the green belt regime is the limitations of its development possibilities. Residential and industrial buildings pose the greatest threat to the green belt. Therefore, in all three of the jurisdictions studied, restrictions are provided for such types of construction within the green belt or its functional analogues.36 Only objects related to agriculture, recreation and sports, as well as forestry, are permitted.

The issue of village development requires the special attention of the legislator in terms of establishing the legal green belt regime. The traditional countryside is considered an open space and, for this reason, in the UK and Ontario villages can be included in the green belt. The task of the legislator in relation to such rural settlements is contradictory—on the one hand, it is necessary to restrain their growth, on the other, to create comfortable living conditions for the residents and the development of agriculture and tourism.

In Russia, the development of villages near cities is not legally restrained, as they are included neither in the forest–park green belt nor in agricultural land. Villages belong to rural settlements and their territories have a settlement land regime that does not provide for any restrictions other than urban zoning. However, the issue of “rural construction” and the occupation of open space around cities is still relevant for Russia, due to the fact that numerous country associations (dwellings or allotments) are located on agricultural land, which does not have the legal status of a village, but in reality often represents low-density settlements. Both the UK and Ontario allow the placement of facilities related to the maintenance and development of villages within the boundaries of the green belt.37 These can be communal infrastructure, local public infrastructure facilities, and first nation’s communities. The combination of communications in a single line, the priority of expanding and modernizing existing infrastructure facilities before creating new ones, and the priority of using previously used land for development are applied as tools to ensure their development with the least loss of green belt lands.38 The construction of new residential buildings is strictly limited using urban planning tools.

The rules on village development are a potentially vulnerable place in the legislation on the green belt, where massive cases of circumvention of the law are possible. Villages in the suburban area can easily turn into cottage development areas used for the residence of wealthy people who do not have a rural lifestyle. Curbing this process is a difficult managerial task. In Russia, the main solution for this is the urban zoning of lands and features of a settlement, provided not only for cities, but also for villages. However, these tools do not take into account the peculiarities of the rural economy and soil fertility (Kresnikova 2014), providing only its low rise and concentration in a limited space. In the USSR there was, previously, a fairly effective system of the specialized “zoning” of agricultural land called land management, but in the post-Soviet period this system was practically destroyed (Volkov 2001, pp. 248–60). Therefore, at the moment, Russia is actively discussing the revival of legislation on land management (Galinovskaya 2023; Lipski 2016) and the possibility of the legislative introduction of specialized zoning and agricultural regulations for agricultural land.39

Within the framework of the three jurisdictions we have studied, two groups of tools were identified that, together, are potentially effective in solving the problem of preventing villages from turning into cottage settlements. The first group is detailed zoning with the establishment of the most specified types of permitted use. This tool is negative in the sense that it restricts undesirable activities in rural areas. The second group is made up of the rules for the construction of communications and affordable housing in rural areas (a positive tool that provides the opportunity to build objects that are desirable for rural areas, but unprofitable for potential investors). It is most effective to use both tools together.

Detailed zoning in rural areas can be illustrated by the example of Ontario. First, there are four types of agricultural territories, with regimes of varying rigidity, in the Ontario green belt. The most valuable lands form the Specialty Crop Area, followed by the Prime Agricultural Area, ordinary agricultural lands are called rural lands, and residential buildings are grouped into settlement areas.40 Their allocation is based on provincial soil and climate analyses. Secondly, the types of permitted use allowed on such lands are defined in as much detail and specificity as possible. Particularly noteworthy is the detailed accounting of the relationship between growing products and their storage, processing and sale, as well as the consideration of of developing rural tourism. Such a systematic approach to understanding agriculture is impressive.41 The system of restrictions on the use of land in rural areas, introduced with the adoption of the Green Belt Act 2005, is assessed by Canadian experts as harsh, compared with previous legislation, even revolutionary (Gayler 2009, p. 86). It is no coincidence that the introduction of this act caused protests among farmers, who believe that any urban activities are more profitable than continuing agriculture (Gayler 2009, p. 81).

Detailed zoning, when combined with strict control of land use, is a strong restrictive tool that weeds out undesirable activities on rural lands. Unfortunately, in addition to the benefits it provides, it also has significant negative consequences. The most typical problem is the shortage of rural housing. As a result of strict zoning, the prices of the plots designated in the planning acts for development are many times higher than the prices of adjacent agricultural land. If the situation is left to the land and housing market, this creates conditions for the construction of only expensive housing in rural areas that is inaccessible to meet the housing needs of rural farmers and their families (Gallent et al. 2022). To solve this problem, the use of specialized non-market instruments is required, the procedure for the application of which should be stipulated in legislation.

The United Kingdom has a developed and actively applicable system of such tools in practice (Gallent et al. 2022; Gkartzios et al. 2022). For example, the NPPF rural exception site provided for in paragraphs 82–84 allows housing to be built on land designated in planning acts as agricultural land, the regime of which does not allow development. An exception to the general rule may be possible in cases where an agreement is reached between a rural community (usually represented by the parish council of a community land trust) that has gathered evidence of the need for additional affordable housing for the local rural population, the landowner who is willing to sell the plot at a discounted price, the planning authority, and the registered provider (which are often called Housing Associations)—a non-profit organization that provides affordable housing construction. Usually, several inexpensive houses are built in this way, which then become available for rent or purchase only to residents of a given village (Gallent et al. 2022, p. 93; Gkartzios et al. 2022, pp. 32–33). Their accessibility to rural residents is due to the initially low market price of land that is not legally intended for construction, combined with the consent of the land owner to sell or lease at a reduced price compared with its market value (practical cases cited by Gallent et al. (2022) show that the motivation of the land owner is the desire of farmers to help their relatives to purchase their own housing in the village, or their might be charitable and/or political motives). In order to stimulate this process, rural housing enablers are working in the UK, whose specialists advise the parties and help them reach an agreement. This method of land development is available within green belts as well (paragraph 154 (f) NPPF).

In order to avoid circumvention of the law in rural areas, rules for the reconstruction and expansion of existing buildings are required, which do not allow for a change in purpose and a significant increase in area and at the same time provide for the priority of using previously built-up land for the development of rural infrastructure. These can be derived by interpreting urban planning legislation or green belt legislation, but it is preferable if they are fixed directly, as is done in the British NPPF.42

4.2. Differentiation of the Green Belt Regime for Different Areas

The green belt can include a wide variety of natural and anthropogenic landscapes: forests, arable land, vineyards, golf courses, meadows, river valleys and lake shores, highlands. Some of these have high ecological value and their management should focus on solving the problem of their preservation in pristine condition, others have value as highly fertile lands or as places of mass suburban recreation zones. Their management goals are predetermined by their geographical features, which is perfectly reflected in the Canadian term “geographic-specific policies”.

It is clear that it is unwise and impractical to establish exhaustive and specific rules for the use of the green belt without taking into account the differences of its individual parts (i.e., differentiation). We found elements of such differentiation both in those jurisdictions that we studied in more depth (Great Britain, Russia and Ontario) and in those that were described in separate publications we studied (Vienna, Paris, Seattle). However, different legal systems may use different ways to ensure the desired differentiation.

When comparing the legislation of the UK, Ontario and Russia, two ways of differentiation are found. The first involves the establishment of a legal regime for specifically named landscapes (Ontario), and the second for certain types of landscapes with established characteristics (UK, Russia). Thus, within the framework of the first approach, special rules may be established in legislation or planning documents for the protection of the Niagara Escarpment (a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 1990), and within the framework of the second, the regime of protection of UNESCO biosphere reserves.

Below, we examine these two approaches in more detail.

(1)

The establishment of a special legal regime for specifically named landscapes (Ontario).

Ontario’s green belt Act 200543 provides for five areas of the green belt (in parenthesis, a planning document is indicated, which provides for the specifics of the use of natural resources within each area):

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Niagara Escarpment Area (Niagara Escarpment Plan 2017);

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Oak Ridges Moraine Area (Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan 2017);

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Protected Countryside (Greenbelt Plan 2017);

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Urban River Valley Area (Greenbelt Plan 2017);

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Glenorchy Area (Greenbelt Plan 2017).

Each specific landscape has its own set boundaries, its own use and protection plan or subsection in the green belt plan, and the two most valuable landscapes, Niagara Escarpment and Oak Ridges Moraine, have their own governing bodies, different from the general green belt governing body. At the same time, special plans (Niagara Escarpment Plan 2017, Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan 2017) have an advantage over the “general” green belt Plan 2017.

The details of the regulatory policies do not end there. The texts of the three development plans reveal further details based on geographical features. Thus, in addition to establishing general policies for the use of protected countryside, the green belt plan 2017 provides features for the specialty crop area, natural heritage system, water resource system and settlement areas.44 The green belt plan 2017 describes in detail the criteria for determining these areas, and their boundaries are put on the maps included in the plan.

The Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan 201745 and Niagara Escarpment Plan 201746 also provide special rules for a number of areas.

(2)

Establishing the specifics of the legal regime for certain types of territories (UK and Russia).

The British NPPF does not say anything about the allocation of parts within the green belts with the peculiarities of the legal regime or about the relationship of the green belt regime with other regimes of territories restricting economic activity. Therefore, this issue has no special features in comparison with the provisions of British legislation in the field of nature conservation, which is based on the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. In other words, it does not matter whether protected areas are allocated within the boundaries of the green belt or outside.

There is no single document integrating the management system of such territories into the green belt management system, as it was in Ontario. Moreover, the London Green Belt does not have a single special development plan or strategy (All Party Parliamentary Group for London’s Green Belt 2019, p. 6)—common spatial planning documents, such as development plans and regional spatial strategies (for example, The London Plan 202147) are used for this purpose. Such documents cover only a part of the green belt based on their administrative and territorial division.

The following types of protected areas have been created within the London Green Belt:

• National nature reserves,48 Ramsar sites,49 special protection areas (SPA), and special areas of conservation (SAC). These areas are of the greatest importance for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. National nature reserves assume a strict regime of protection and management by a specialized organization (trust fund or Nature England management). Ramsar sites are created in compliance with the provisions of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands in order to protect the habitats of migratory waterfowl. The special protection areas (SPA) conservation regime is designed to preserve birds, and the special areas of conservation (SAC) are designed to preserve habitats of ecologically significant species (Bridger 2023, p. 211). National nature reserves such as Richmond Park, Ruislip Woods, Broxbord Woods and others are located on the territory of the green belt.
• Sites of special scientific interest (SSSI). As a general rule, owners of plots within the SSSI boundaries do not have the right to carry out various economic activities on the land without the written consent of Natural England.50 SSSI borders often include the territories listed in the paragraph above. SSSI occupies 5% of the London Green Belt (All Party Parliamentary Group for London’s Green Belt 2019, p. 13).
• Areas of outstanding natural beauty (also referred to as national landscapes) are created to protect landscape diversity and ensure public access to areas of outstanding natural beauty.51 Areas of outstanding natural beauty occupy 24% of the London Green Belt (All Party Parliamentary Group for London’s Green Belt 2019, p. 13). One of these, Chiltern Hills, has its own statutory body– the Chiltern Conservation Board (established in 2004).
• Sites of importance for nature conservation (SINCs) are a type of local sites.52 Unlike the types of territories listed above, these places are of local importance and are managed by local authorities in cooperation with environmental organizations. In 2006, the national government published recommendations on the management of such territories.53 According to the Parliamentary Group, 39% of the London Green Belt is classified in this category (All Party Parliamentary Group for London’s Green Belt 2019, p. 13).

The legislation on the green belts of Russia, as well as of the United Kingdom, does not explicitly provide for the allocation of any parts in their composition. As a rule, green belts in Russia do not have independent plans or strategies. Therefore, the specification of the legal framework within the greenbelt is carried out in accordance with the general principles of legislation on specially protected natural areas (SPNA) and forestry legislation. We shall below see how differentiation takes place using the example of the forests of the Moscow region (in the absence of approved boundaries of the Moscow forest–park green belt, they serve as a functional analogue of the green belt—taking into account the prevailing understanding in Russia of it as covered with forest).

The first option for establishing a stricter security regime is the creation of specially protected natural areas. This term combines many types of territories with a widely varying legal regime: nature reserves, national parks, nature parks, sanctuaries, natural monuments, arboretum gardens, etc.54 Some of these can be created only at the federal level, but most of them can also be created at the regional level. In addition, the federal law allows for the establishment of additional types of regional protected areas in regional legislation,55 which is actively used in Moscow and the Moscow region.56

The governments of Moscow City and the Moscow Region actively implement a policy to grant numerous key forest areas the status of regional protected areas, including those which are only provided for in regional legislation (Baranova and Voronina 2022). In particular, a network of 258 regional protected areas has been established in the Moscow Oblast. This network includes 167 state nature reserves, 86 natural landmarks, 4 coastal recreation areas, and 1 specially designated natural site.57

Two thematic maps (Figure 2 and Figure 3) as part of the territorial planning scheme of the Moscow region in 2007,58 projected location of the network of protected areas and the system of “growth corridors,” are displayed. A comparison of the two maps shows that the network of regional protected areas is functionally approaching the green network that restrains the growth of the city.59

The second option for differentiating the legal regime of the green belt is the allocation of protective forests and especially of protective forest areas with a stricter use regime that is aimed at preserving and improving the ecological functions of forests.60 The procedure for their design, establishing their boundaries on the ground and entering information about their boundaries into the forest register is provided for in Articles 68, 68.2, and 68.3 of the Forest Code of the RF and the Forest Management Instruction of 2022.61

According to experts from the Moscow State University of Forests (Moiseev and Surkanov 2014), in 2014 all forests of the Moscow region were classified as protected forests (according to Russian legislation, forests can belong to one of three categories: exploitable, protective or reserve forests). Only the allocation of particularly protective forest areas varies—coastal protection, soil protection, protected forest areas, forest areas with the presence of relict or endemic plants, etc.

The legislation of Russia and the United Kingdom demonstrates certain similarities, leaving aside the issues of differentiation of the green belt regime and the provision of a solution to this issue via the norms of legislation on conservative nature protection. The existing difference in the organization of differentiation of the greenbelt regimes of London and Moscow is mainly due to the following two factors: (a) geographical—the dominance of forest landscapes in the structure of the undeveloped space of Moscow and the diversity of landscapes in the structure of the green belt of London and (b) a different understanding of the green belt—in Russia, the green belt is historically understood as a territory covered with forest, and not just an open space.

It is much more interesting to compare the approaches of the province of Ontario on the one hand and London and Moscow on the other. Ultimately, within the framework of these approaches, the detail of regulation “reaches” a specific geographically defined area. The difference lies in the following two key points:

(I) In the organization of regulatory material: in Ontario, all elements of the green belt are allocated at the highest regulatory level, it is not difficult to identify their system; in London and Moscow, it is necessary to study a complex system of regional and local plans and acts of law enforcement adopted within the boundaries of the green belt in order to discover which areas and which regimes form part of its composition;

(II) In the organization of planning for the use of the green belt as an integrated system: in Ontario, there is a “general” use plan for the entire green belt, detailed by more special plans (in the Council of Europe, these documents were developed simultaneously, in 2017, taking into account each other and taking into account the environmental interaction of the managed territories; it is not accidental that the green belt itself in Ontario is largely considered as a link between the Niagara Escarpment and Oak Ridges Moraine); in Moscow and London, there is no single specialized planning document for the green belt (most likely, the systemic relationships between the green belt and specially protected areas were taken into account when making design decisions, but they are not legally stipulated in planning documents).

Conducting a comparative study, one can ask another question: is it possible that the establishment of the features of the legal regime for specifically named landscapes is unique for Ontario, where the green belt was created as a connecting area between the previously created Oak Ridges Moraine and Niagara Escarpment?

In our opinion, the answer will be no. Of course, the historical subtext (that is, the tasks that society faced at the time of the Ontario green belt establishment) predetermined the choice of exactly this method of establishing the features of the legal regime. However, Ontario is by no means the only jurisdiction that establishes usage patterns for specifically defined parts of the green belt.

The preparation of specialized plans for parts of the Ontario green belt is very similar to the landscape planning practice adopted in many European countries. Three specialized Ontario plans clearly show the impact of the goals and objectives of landscape planning, as understood by European experts (Wende et al. 2020): biotic regulation and regeneration; groundwater recharge, yield and decontamination services; and the resistance of soil and wind erosion. In addition, the same approach to implementing these plans is applied. The prepared specialized “landscape” plan must be considered when preparing general planning documents, such as official plans and zoning regulations, the provisions of which should not contradict it.62

Vienna and Berlin use a very similar way of differentiating the legal regime and the policies applied within their green belts. Thus, there are five landscapes in the Vienna green belt: Wienerwald (Vienna Forest), Bisamberg Hill, Marchfeld Agricultural Zone, Danube Zone, Terrassenlandschaft (terraced landscapes south of Vienna). Each of these uses its own set of management tools provided for in planning documents: Wienerwald declaration 2002, Agricultural Structural Development Plan 2004, Vienna Danube Zone Structure Plan 2000 (Breiling and Ruland 2008). Additionally, the green belt of Berlin is divided into eight regional parks with their own specialization and separate management and financing bodies (Kühn and Gailing 2008).

5. Conclusions

At the end of the study, it is logical to suggest answers to the questions that we posed at the very beginning. The main question that we addressed was the following: is there really a serious need to fix the general rules for the protection of the green belt at the legislative level rather than at the level of planning and zoning acts? Having studied the legislation and practical problems of three different jurisdictions, we can confidently answer positively—yes, there is such a need.

Firstly, the protection of the green belt from development is a complex area of public activity associated with a number of conflicts of interest that require legal resolution. In all three jurisdictions we have studied, we have repeatedly encountered conflicts between the desire of land users to maximize the benefits of using their land and the desire of society to preserve the agricultural use of land. In addition, there is a serious conflict of public interests raging here. In particular, the interests of the metropolitan region as a whole require serious restrictions on the development of the green belt, and on the contrary, the interests of the development of municipalities located around the core city of the metropolitan region require the easing of building restrictions.

In the absence of specialized legal regulation, these conflicts will be exclusively political. In the field of green belt policy, the political struggle usually focuses on the process of regional and local planning. The proposals of professional designers are publicly heard and approved by public authorities—and these tools are used to promote the political interests of certain groups.

Of course, the law is not able to eliminate the political struggle, but it is able to set certain limits for it. This may be the establishment of decision-making criteria—as was seen in the example of the establishment of signs of land plots excluded from the green belt in the British NPPF. This may be the establishment of a list of factual circumstances, in the presence of which a particular decision may be made. Finally, it is possible to establish legal guarantees—as was seen in the example of guarantees for the preservation of the green belt area.

Secondly, it is necessary to take into account the enormous informational functions of law in the process of organizing management in complex spheres of human activity. This is clearly seen in the example of Ontario legislation, which is assessed by local experts as having made significant changes to the management system (Macdonald et al. 2021b; Gayler 2009, p. 86). Here, at the level of the law, “only” well thought out procedures for specialized management and planning were provided. Everything else, according to Ontario law, must be disclosed in specialized plans. The legislator provided managers with a clear sequence of actions, as well as clear management guidelines, requirements and procedures, and this made the system of curbing the green belt development effective.

A positive answer to the main question—whether there is a need for legal intervention—logically requires identifying the range of relations that require such intervention, that is, determining the subject of regulation of legislation on the green belt.

We read that the sphere of relations covered by the subject of the regulation on the legislation of the green belt should include five categories of public relations:

(1)

relations pertaining to the use of land and other natural resources within the green belt;

(2)

relations in the field of planning the use and protection of the green belt;

(3)

relations in the area of the creation and functioning of the green belt management bodies;

(4)

relations in the area of the initial creation of the green belt or its complete elimination;

(5)

relations in the area of the exclusion of certain land plots from the green belt.

In our opinion, the greatest attention should be paid to relations in the field of planning and relations regarding the exclusion of land plots from the green belt. It is in these two areas that the functions of law are most actively implemented—in the first case, the information function that guides management processes and in the second, the regulatory function that ensures the resolution of conflicts of interest.

It is also of great importance to establish precise and specific restrictions on the use of land and other natural resources within the green belt. Usually, if there is legislation in the field of the green belt, this issue does not escape the attention of the legislator and does not form a complete gap in regulation. However, the legislation will be effective only if the legal restrictions are carefully thought out with their clear reference to certain local conditions.

Here we can move on to the third question raised—is it necessary to differentiate the legal restrictions on the use of land within the green belt, taking into account the geographical features of individual areas? It seems that such differentiation should not just be present but should be linked to the tasks of managing the green belt as a whole. The green belt is a complex system and must be managed using a systematic approach. As part of the green belt, areas with a stricter regime should not only be allocated, but restrictions on their use, management and their geographical location should be agreed upon. This indicates the need to prepare a unified strategy or management plan for the green belt and include in it the specifics of managing various territories.

Finally, we can return to the issue of the Russian law on the forest–park green belt,63 which prompted us to start this study. It would appear that the following factors were among the weaknesses that led to the lack of revolutionary change compared with previous legislation:

(1)

the outstanding issue regarding the relationship between the proposed forest–park green belt and the existing functional equivalents of the green belt under Russian legislation—forest–park and green zones, and the status of agricultural land (which has resulted in the duplication of statuses and boundaries);

(2)

the ill-considered goals of green belt management, the extremely low degree of their specificity and the lack of explicit reference to well-known (also known to Russian planners) green belt policy concepts;

(3)

the lack of attention of the legislator to relations in the field of green belt management.

It should be noted that the category of the protective belt itself is not new either for western countries or for Russia. However, the legal regulation of the green belt protection and its understanding have been built up for decades. Therefore, drastic changes in improving the state of the green belt protection in the countries under consideration can hardly be expected in the near future. The practical implementation of legislation requires time and improvement of legal regulation. The planned development of green belts, which will contribute to the effective management of the condition of all green spaces in the places of residence, is a very important tool.

The conducted research was based on the developments of well-known scientists in the field of law of western countries and Russia, dealing with the problems of forest protection and green belts. The conclusions of the given study can be used as a basis for improving the legal regulation of understanding and protection of the green belt.