Put up a parking lot
A controversial planning application by Cork's GAA stadium for parking spaces on public open space at the Marina has led to frustrations, objections and allegations of broken promises.
The Field
At first glance, it’s an innocuous-looking little patch of ground. This isn’t a John B Keane play, so it’s hard to believe it could be the genesis, or perhaps repository, of so much frustration.
Running alongside the fencing of the 4G pitch at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, the council-owned patch of grass is the larger of two areas of the eagerly anticipated, and publicly owned, new Marina Park that the GAA stadium’s board now wish to convert to car parking.
Although it’s been a fixture on the Cork landscape since 1976, Páirc Uí Chaoimh has been open just four years since an ambitious €100 million redevelopment, which came with planning controversies of its own. Government funding had subsidised the redevelopment of the 45,000 capacity stadium to the tune of €30 million.
Money trouble
The past four years haven’t exactly been plain sailing for Páirc Uí Chaoimh management; less than two years after its reopening, Cork county board announced that the pitch needed replacing, causing nearly six months of closure from July 2019. At the time, it was reported that the new pitch would be in fine fettle for the Allianz League in spring 2020.
But we all know what happened in spring 2020.
As a result, with the Leeside stadium pressed into use first as a Covid testing centre and now as a mass vaccination centre, and with a variety of delays, cancellations and audience number restrictions surrounding GAA in 2020 and 2021, Pairc Uí Chaoimh CTR have not been able to make a dent in their almost €30 million debt through ticket sales since they reopened in 2017.
A new planning application lodged by the stadium management in July aims to introduce new ways for the organisation to generate revenue: a GAA museum and tours, a café, corporate events facilities.
But the application also includes two car parks, with parking for 150 cars and vehicular access to the improved stadium frontage. The proposed vehicular access to the stadium transects the meandering line of the new Marina Park, a new landscaped linear amenity whose first phase is set to open before this year is out.
Communications between representatives of Páirc Uí Chaoimh and the local Ballintemple Residents Association (BARA) have been frayed for years, and the thing that’s helping this the least at the moment is the presence of a seven-year-old document that BARA says represents a massive breach of trust between the board of Páirc Uí Chaoimh and themselves.
A memorandum of understanding
Colm O’Leary is BARA’s co-chair, an engineer who grew up in Ballintemple, spending years elsewhere before returning to raise his own children in the quiet suburb.
The memorandum of understanding, signed in 2014 to help BARA members and Páirc Uí Chaoimh’s board come to an agreement about the planning application for the stadium’s €100 million overhaul, he explains.
Condition ten of the memorandum of agreement reads, “Pairc Uí Chaoimh will not look for additional car parking within the Marina Park.”
“They’ve pretty much ignored that memorandum of understanding since the day they signed it, but we’ve always acted in good faith to it,” Colm tells me. “BARA withdrew their objection to the stadium as a result of the memorandum, which was a big step forward to the stadium getting their planning approval in the first place.”
“There was significant opposition to the location, and everyone was telling them to put it in a Greenfield site, with loads of access to parking. They chose to ignore everyone’s advice and they’ve painted themselves into the corner they’re in now, so it’s no-one’s fault but their own.”
“They’ve ignored the memorandum of understanding completely, even though it was signed by the chairman and the secretary of the GAA. It’s not a legally enforceable document obviously, but you enter into it in good faith, and it reflects poorly on the board who signed it.”
Michael O’Flynn calls me, from a no-ID number at a pre-arranged time. Michael is a busy man: he’s the CEO of O’Flynn Group, the developers behind The Elysian and Eastgate Business Park, but he’s clear that he’s talking to me in his capacity as the Director of the Páirc Uí Chaoimh stadium board.
I ask him about the memorandum of understanding, the breach of trust it represents to BARA.
“There’s been a difficult history there in relation to past interactions,” Michael concedes. “I came onto the board long after the stadium was built; we’re just trying to make things work.”
“But you have to understand that the memorandum of understanding was signed when there was a proposal to put more parking on the Monahan Road side of the stadium, near the city. But it was been firmly rejected by city council. The GAA thought that was going to happen, and the fact that it didn’t is one of the reasons why we’re making this application.”
“You must view that memorandum of understanding in that context,” he says. “I don’t want to get into tit-for-tat with them, but that’s the reality.”
“Land Grab”
Public submissions on Páirc Uí Chaoimh’s planning application closed in late August; over 130 submissions were made, the bulk of these objecting to Páirc Uí Chaoimh’s plan. Objections make frequent references to road safety, to the inadvisability of encouraging match-goers to attend the stadium by car, to concerns that the stadium’s new conference and events plans are in effect a sort of “Events Centre by stealth.”
BARA submitted a detailed objection on a range of grounds relating to traffic management and road safety, as well as to the principle of building a car park to benefit a private business on public land.
Lands for the Marina Park were acquired by Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) by Cork City Council to provide “Open Public Space.”
“The public lands previously gained by CPO are being used for a private car park in a public park,” their submission reads.
Michael objects to this interpretation: ownership of the car parking facilities will remain with Cork City Council, he points out, and he argues that the additional parking facilities will largely be used by members of the public accessing the amenity spaces.
The proposed 86-space car park at the Blackrock end would have six bus parking spaces, which the GAA say could be converted to “124 match-day spaces for disabled and VIP parking.”
“The public are the big beneficiaries of this,” Michael says. “Is it being suggested that Marina Park is just a local residents’ park, that it’s not a Cork regional facility? Because if it’s Cork region, people have to be able to get there. Not everyone can walk five miles and then walk the Marina and then walk five miles back.”
“There are already 350 car parking spaces around Marina Park that are never at capacity,” Colm tells me. “There’s even a third car park, which we refer to as the secret car park, that’s alongside the stadium and that’s always locked and is only opened for the GAA for match days. If there are concerns about parking, then just open that car park and let people use it.”
The “secret car park”
“Listen, I’m really getting annoyed at this stage because that’s not factual,” Michael O’Flynn says on the phone when I ask him about the secret car park.
“The day of a big match or concert, the fire officer won’t allow the spaces around the stadium to be used for disability parking. On big match days and concerts, we’re only allowed to use 25 of those spaces.They go on about the parking at Shandon Boat Club: that’s too far away for disability use and the slope down from the Marina is too steep.”
Michael was on the board of the Liam Miller charity football match in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in 2018; he says the issue of the stadium’s inadequate “blue badge” disability access was driven home to him by the experience.
“I had to hire golf buggys from Kildare to ferry disabled people down to the stadium because we couldn’t use the spaces,” he says. “How embarrassing is that? The experience really stuck with me. We have 100 disabled access seats in the stadium, and we don’t have enough parking spaces for them.”
Swings and roundabouts
For every assertion made by each side in the planning application, there’s a counter-assertion. For BARA, the application is contrary to The National Planning Framework, the Marina Park Development Plan, Cork City Development Plan, and the South Docklands Development Plan. For the applicants, some of these are the very plans they refer to as supporting their application.
Michael O’Flynn tells me the GAA are getting a “very rough ride on social media. We’re applying for infrastructural issues which are essential to the functioning of the stadium to be corrected. I’m doing my very best to explain to everyone what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it.”
It’s clear that BARA feel the consultation process has been imbalanced against them; Páirc Uí Chaoimh representatives held pre-planning meetings in Cork City Hall in November 2019, January 2020, and July 2020. In April 2021, Páirc Uí Chaoimh held one consultation with residents.
It’s an imbalance BARA feel keenly.
“The planning process is skewed anyway, when you’re allowed to go into pre-planning meetings where the chief executive is sitting down with you,” Colm says. “They’re at a significant advantage. We’ve got five weeks; they’ve got two years.”
Nevertheless BARA are vocal, and organised; I find myself wondering if they really represent all the views of area residents?
A Vox Pop, and a cycle
Early on an overcast weekday morning, the area around Atlantic Pond seems steeped in a quiet, reflective mood: elderly couples out walking dogs, women, no doubt post-school-run, getting a little exercise, lost in their own thoughts.
The car park near the rowing club is less than half full. I have done what so many do when using the amenity: for time reasons, and because I was on a school run of my own, I have driven with my bike on board and parked in the ample free parking next to the boat club, facing the Lee.
Pedalling around Páirc Uí Chaoimh stopping to take photos, I ask the four locals I meet - there are people from further afield around, too - if they know about the new planning application, and what they make of it.
Two, both men in late middle age, tell me they weren’t aware of the application at all.
One woman, out with her dog, tells me she thinks it’s a positive development for the area, that the additional parking can be used by people wishing to access Marina Park.
“I grew up in Douglas and when we were children, my parents would drive us down to Pier Head and we’d park there and go down and climb the grotto and walk along the Marina,” she says with a shrug.
One young man, out for his morning exercise, tells me with furrowed brow that although he is aware of the application and doesn’t agree with it, he’s “just been trying not to focus on negative stuff in this past year or so. Definitely during Covid this place became my sanctuary, but I don’t want to get involved.” He tells me he’s renting in the area and will soon move.
The planning file
I don’t feel that it’s my job to try to relay each and every assertion and counter assertion made by objectors and applicants in this planning saga so far.
The best thing you can do is take a look at the file yourself, if you’re interested. It’s here.
What’s clear is that there are issues of trust and communication dating back years between the parties in this story, and I want to look at a couple of them a little closer.
The letter
Another document besides the memorandum of understanding has emerged as a sticking point in the tale.
Because the land that Páirc Uí Chaoimh want to develop is in the ownership of Cork City Council, the council’s Director of Services had to issue a letter consenting for the planning application.
BARA say that at this point, given the broken memorandum of understanding, and a list of outstanding planning non-compliance issues for Páirc Uí Chaoimh left over from the last planning application in 2014, Cork City Council could have just not given consent.
Colm says he was “disappointed, but not surprised,” with the council’s decision to give the go-ahead for the planning process.
“We requested to meet with the council on multiple occasions to talk to them about why we think they shouldn’t have issued that letter, and we were ignored,” Colm says. “We had no interface at all with the council and we had strong councillor objection to issuing that letter.”
“The executive could have easily taken the option at that point to say no, this is amenity space; that’s what it’s defined as in the Cork City Development Plan, that’s what it’s defined as in the Marina Park Development Plan, in the South Docklands Development Plan. There were multiple reasons they could have said no, and they took a significant amount of time and then said yes.”
Paul Moynihan, Cork City Council’s Director of Services, is the man whose signature appears on that letter, written in July. I call him up.
“The responsibility for issuing letters of consent for planning applications on public lands has always been an executive matter,” he tells me. “It paves the way for whatever planning proposal to be considered in the statutory planning process, where an open deliberation can be had, with public consultation included.”
He’s adamant that his role is not to “act as judge or jury” when it comes to the merits of the planning application: “It’s a simple question of whether or not to have what is being proposed go to the formal planning process, with the facility for the public to participate fully,” he says, pointing out that such letters are not uncommon, both for infrastructural projects and developments.
“I’d say there’s been three of four of them in the last 12-18 months,” he says.
Paul says he brought the matter before councillors in line with a “democratic mandate” back in March, and he seems to view this as a form of compromise in which the letter played a role: “I thought it was necessary that they be amongst the first people to hear of the plans, so stadium representatives presented the plans and there was a lot of discussion at that stage around the existing issues with Páirc Uí Chaoimh, described as being long-standing problems requiring attention and those issues were set out for stadium management, and they’ve developed a plan to address those issues going forward.”
From this point forward, Paul points out, the entire process, including a material contravention that necessitates a council vote, will be seen out.
“All the disciplines - fire officers, parks, engineers, mobility, transportation - would feed into the process,” he says. “If planning were to be granted, my understanding is that it would require a material contravention and a vote of council. If planning is refused, there’s also an entitlement to appeal to An Bórd Pleanála (ABP).”
Shine a little light
Appeals to ABP may not sound like a reassuring recourse to BARA, given that there has been an outstanding issue between Páirc Uí Chaoimh and Cork City Council since 2015, when ABP ruled that a condition of granting their original planning was that Páirc Uí Chaoimh make a contribution to upgrades to public lighting in the docklands area.
Páirc Uí Chaoimh offered €60,000 and Cork City Council wanted €700,000; no settlement was reached until the issue went back before ABP, who this February ruled that Páirc Uí Chaoimh would contribute €305,000.
Michael O’Flynn says the figure will be paid soon. “In the last number of days, the invoice has been received and it will be paid,” he says. “But we want assurances that the payment for this lighting will actually result in an upgrade for the area soon.”
“What we were offering was well below what City Council wanted, but there’s a process there to deal with these issues.”
To Michael, the issue is not one of Páirc Uí Chaoimh breaking a condition of their planning, rather one of the planning process being played out.
Nevertheless, Colm does not agree. And BARA’s objection seeks to point out this and other ongoing compliance issues with the 2015 planning permission, including the provision of bicycle parking spaces, which have now become part of this fresh planning application.
“There’s a specific condition where you can be refused planning permission if you’re in breach of previous planning conditions, so that may be enacted, I’m not too sure,” Colm says. “It’s in our submission.”
The future docklands?
For BARA, Marina Park is the regional park for the future docklands development. Massive expansions are about to get underway. A 1,000-unit apartment development on the former Live At The Marquee site has been granted.
This Friday, submissions close on plans for a 400-metre dual carriageway on the Monahan road; a project that Fine Gael South East Councillor Des Cahill says may look like a “road to nowhere” at present, but which will become a necessary artery when a projected additional population of 20,000 people in the coming two decades are living in the area.
Colm is not fully convinced that the four-lane elevated road is necessary, although he agrees that the infrastructure in the area will require upgrading to cope with the developments in the pipeline.
“My personal view is that the infrastructure seems excessive, to be putting in four lanes down that road,” Colm says. “Infrastructure is needed, but ramping a four-lane highway up six metres above water level, over the Marina Road?…..I don’t know where all these car flows are going and I don’t understand the function of it, but maybe we’re in need of it. I don’t understand why you need four lanes going into the city from that point, who’s going to use the infrastructure. The people living in the area will be within walking distance of the city and won’t be driving in, so I don’t understand the ultimate function of it.”
Colm says BARA are not NIMBYs - they’re motivated by a desire to see a good quality of life in the area into future decades, when space is at a premium and open public space is an invaluable asset.
“For the 20,000-30,000 people who will be living here in the next 20-30 years, those people will need open space,” he says. “Once you lose open space, it’s gone forever. You’re not getting it back. There are strict guidelines for the amount of open space that’s needed per head per capita, and we’re already short of that in the area. If the disposal of this land goes ahead, it will reduce it even more, and it’s gone, done.”
Cllr Des Cahill is in agreement with the necessity to protect the open public space in the area.
He objected to Cork City Council signing the letter of consent for Páirc Uí Chaoimh’s planning application. He’s one of a number of councillors, including Cllr Oliver Moran and Cllr Lorna Bogue, to have lodged objections to the planning file.
“I accept that there are elements of the submission that are fine, but the large car park and the vehicular use of the Blackrock end are unacceptable to me,” he tells me. “I believe they’ll have a detrimental effect on what’s going to be Ireland’s biggest linear public park.”
Too little parking, and too much?
“The council have built 250 spaces within easy reach of the stadium,” he says. “There’s space for 50 more spaces at the Lee Boat Club if it’s needed. There are another 50 spaces already available at the Blackrock end. I also recommended that what used to be an unofficial parking area by the CAB, that that be turned into an entirely blue badge and bike rack area.”
At the same time, both he and BARA point out, a transport strategy for match days that’s reliant on thousands of fans trying to park outside the stadium will not be alleviated by the additional spaces Páirc Uí Chaoimh wants to install.
“Adding another 150 spaces makes no difference to a match with 40,000 people at it,” Des points out. “It’s a drop in the ocean.”
“If you get a bus or train to Cork for a big match or a concert, it’s a 25 minute walk and you’re at the stadium, They could utilise the Park and Ride at Blackash. There’s 930 spaces at the Park and Ride, and with a bit of organisation, that could be used very successfully for match days.”
“I go to matches in Limerick and Dublin,” he says, “When I go to those matches, I don’t expect to be able to drive up to within 100 metres of the stadium and then walk into the match. When you include the public spaces on the Marina, I’d argue that there’s more parking at Páirc Uí Chaoimh than Croke Park.”
Des acknowledges that keeping Páirc Uí Chaoimh alive and viable, and sustainable into the future, is of benefit into the future. But he hopes that the lengthy saga, with all its trust and communication issues, can be best solved by negotiation and understanding.
“I’m hoping that what Páirc Uí Chaoimh will do is go back for further information, and take those elements out of their application and then drive on. I think they’d get the support of the public like that.”
“They can reconfigure some of their internal spaces that they keep for committee members and VIPs, they can convert some of them to blue badge spaces, and add about 10 or 15 spaces at the CAB entrance. I don’t think that’s unreasonable, do you?”
A twenty / twenty five minute walk from the city centre is no big deal to most able bodied people; if parking for the disabled, without infringing on green spaces can be provided ( e.g., in the "secret" car park), then there would appear to be no reason to create further general parking.