diff --git a/grails-forge-core/src/main/java/org/grails/forge/feature/build/gradle/templates/buildSrcBuildGradle.rocker.raw b/grails-forge-core/src/main/java/org/grails/forge/feature/build/gradle/templates/buildSrcBuildGradle.rocker.raw
index 7e3ba0aa..7f06f7e0 100644
--- a/grails-forge-core/src/main/java/org/grails/forge/feature/build/gradle/templates/buildSrcBuildGradle.rocker.raw
+++ b/grails-forge-core/src/main/java/org/grails/forge/feature/build/gradle/templates/buildSrcBuildGradle.rocker.raw
@@ -32,6 +32,17 @@ GradleBuild gradleBuild,
 String grailsVersion
 )
 
+// load the root gradle.properties only for properties not already set
+// (e.g., buildSrc/gradle.properties or by environment variables like ORG_GRADLE_PROJECT_grailsVersion=7.0.0)
+// https://github.com/gradle/gradle/issues/2534
+def props = new Properties()
+file('../gradle.properties').withInputStream { props.load(it) }
+props.each { key, val ->
+    if (!project.hasProperty(key)) {
+        project.ext."$key" = val
+    }
+}
+
 repositories {
     mavenCentral()
     maven { url = 'https://repo.grails.org/grails/restricted' }
@@ -53,8 +64,8 @@ repositories {
 }
 
 dependencies {
-    implementation platform("org.apache.grails:grails-bom:@VersionInfo.getGrailsVersion()")
+    implementation platform("org.apache.grails:grails-bom:$grailsVersion")
 @for (GradleDependency dependency : gradleBuild.getBuildSrcDependencies()) {
     @dependency.toSnippet()
 }
-}
\ No newline at end of file
+}