Changes made to Cork City development plan to allow for more parking despite concerns

The variation effectively relaxes the minimum parking standards in a parking policy which was agreed upon when the plan came into effect last August. Picture: Denis Minihane.

The Cork city development plan has been changed to allow more parking in places despite concerns that it could weaken the 15-minute city concept and undermine city efforts to become climate neutral by the end of the decade.

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The variation, just nine months into the life of the new plan, effectively relaxes the minimum parking standards in a parking policy which was agreed when the plan came into effect last August.

The policy divided the city into four parking zones — zone 1, the city centre, through to zone 4, the city hinterland – and set limits on the amount of parking permitted in each zone, depending on the land use and the type of development proposed.

It sought to constrain parking in the city centre below certain maximum levels to reinforce pedestrian priority and to promote a move towards public transport or active travel, with slightly more parking allowed in the other zones.

But just a few months into the life of the plan, council bosses published for public consultation the details of a proposed variation seeking to tweak the zones and update the maximum car parking standards, effectively increasing the amount of parking allowed in certain zones to "largely align the demand management approach" with the current level of public transport provision.

They also sought to update the parking standards as improvements to the bus network, new bike lanes, and light rail, are delivered over the coming years.

Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) sought a pause on the variation, expressing concerns that the changes could potentially undermine the provision of active travel and public transport in the short to medium term, and have an adverse impact on the national road network.

But Fearghal Reidy, the council's director of strategic and economic development, told councillors on Monday that following months of engagement with TII and the NTA, and after taking into account the feedback in 43 submissions, a number of amendments to the variation were drafted, including a commitment to engage with the TII and NTA, and to review the parking standards annually.

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Those amendments went on public display earlier this year and 15 submissions were made, including ones from the Office of the Planning Regulator, TII and the NTA this time expressing support for the moves.

Mr Reidy described the proposals as "the most progressive in the country" as the council strives to strike a balance between reducing parking in line with the provision of better public transport.

Senior planner Kevin O’Connor said the annual review process will allow for the tweaking of the parking zones and future reductions to the parking standards as public transport improvements are delivered in specific areas.

Fianna Fáil Cllr Sean Martin said it was a sensible compromise while Fine Gael Cllr Joe Kavanagh described cars as "a necessary evil" and said they "are always going to be with us no matter how good public transport is" — a notion rubbished by Green Party Cllr Colette Finn.

"My mother didn't know how to drive, we didn't have a car. So this idea that we can't do without our cars, that we’ll never have a world where we don't move around in cars, it has already existed in my lifetime," she said.

"Sometimes you have to take difficult choices and say to people ‘you can't park your car directly outside your door the way you always did because that has a knock-on effect on your children and your children's children. And we have to get real about that." Party colleague Cllr Dan Boyle said: "To make this variation so soon after the city development plan has gone through all its process, is weakening some of the main aspects of the plan, particularly the idea of the 15-minute city.

"Increasing car parking capacity from what we intended when we passed the plan will send out the wrong signals. We feel it's a move in the wrong direction." He said the city development plan contained principles to achieve a better balance in our transport mode in a city where 75% of all journeys are by private car, less than 10% by public transport, and 1% by bike.

"If we have the ambition, if we are to achieve the change, this is not the type of signal we should be sending out," he said.

Solidarity Cllr Fiona Ryan also opposed the move and quoted stark warnings from the 2023 inter-governmental panel on climate change on the need for fundamental systemic change.

"Every action we take has to have the hardest possible orientation to limiting emissions," she said.

However, councillors voted 16-9 to approve the variation.

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