As tensions grow over parking around new apartment blocks, some councillors look for change

During a round of questions and answers at the North Central Area Committee this week, talk among councillors turned, yet again, to parking.

Representatives from Clúid, an approved housing body (AHB), had come before councillors to talk about how it manages its properties – and the parking spaces it has for residents.

That served as a prompt for independent Councillor John Lyons. Current parking policy needs to be addressed, said Lyons at the meeting. 

Policy is to encourage a shift away from private cars to sustainable modes of transport, he said.

In practice, that means limiting the number of car parking included when building new apartment complexes.

“But in the here and now, in the very short to medium term, not providing enough car park spaces has real, negative consequences for people,” Lyons said.

Indeed, said Councillor Daryl Barron, of Fianna Fáil. It’s a problem that needs to be confronted now before it spirals, he said.

But while the concerns have piled up, the way forward is less clear. 

Solutions?

Dublin City Council didn’t respond to queries around parking in planning.

But, in response to a query to the Department of Housing, about parking policies in new complexes, a spokesperson ran down the reasons in favour of the existing policy.

Pushing people to use public transport, cycle, or walk, is needed to reduce carbon emissions to help blunt climate change, and reduce traffic congestion in the city, the spokesperson said. 

It can also keep construction costs down, particularly for apartments, he said.

At Monday’s meeting, Sarah Mallon of Clúid said it is trialling a new idea in the hope to alleviate some of the car parking woes in the new Parkside development in Belmayne.

“Car parking is very problematic up there, as it is in most of our schemes at the moment,” she said.

They have introduced a new parking app, she said. 

While nobody has an assigned spot, they can book parking for three days at a time, she said. “And it’s on rotation.”

Mallon said the new approach seems to be working “quite well”.

Barron, the Fianna Fáil councillor, said he hasn’t heard much feedback yet from Belmayne residents but that the new approach sounded interesting. “It could be a pilot for other areas that we may need.”

He isn’t quite convinced yet though. “After the three days, where do they go?”

Back and forth

Barron says he has worked on helping several tenants move into new properties around Belmayne and Clongriffin over the past few months.

When they get the welcome confirmation of a new home, he said, the next email is usually about car parking.

New tenants will really be on edge, he said.

Some end up in a lottery system, he said, and for those unsuccessful, it can be a blow. “The anxiety that I see in their faces when they know they're not going to get them.”

“We have to be very conscious that we're actually alienating people already against each other, before we start building communities,” he said.

Barron said it will be interesting to see how the situation plays out in the new Oscar Traynor Woods housing complex, which opened to its first of several phases of new tenants earlier this year.

When there are not sufficient car parking spaces in new developments, drivers simply park around the adjacent areas, blocking roads and driveways, he said by phone on Thursday.

That is a reality already clear from developments that have opened in recent years, he said.

Like across the Liffey, in Drimnagh. An Bord Pleanála approved a planning application for The Davitt development, right next to the Grand Canal, near the Goldenbridge Luas stop, in 2019.

The plans were for 265 apartments, 119 car parking spaces, and 560 bike parking spaces. 

Observations raised concerns about parking in future, show the inspector’s report. But the complex is right by the Luas, the inspector noted, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

In 2023, after tenants moved in, and parking on nearby streets became a point of conflict, local councillors said they thought that the situation would settle.

Speaking late last year, Patricia Ryan of Dynamic Drimnagh, and other local residents, said that hadn’t happened yet.  

And the share of households with at least one car in Crumlin A, the electoral division that includes The Davitt, has risen, showed census data – from about 67 percent in 2016 to about 71 percent in 2022.

Stick to the plan

New housing developments across the city are just following what is laid out in the Dublin City Development Plan, which is to reduce car parking in all developments, says Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney.

“We all voted on that ourselves as councillors” she said.

Dublin City Council’s development plan sets a maximum of 0.5 car parking space for each new home in zone one, within the canals, and a maximum of 1 parking space per home outside of that.

For her, it’s a little bit baffling now to hear people calling for amendments, said Cooney.

There needs to be prioritisation for people who really need their cars, she said. For those with disabilities and older people. 

And, it’s important to realise that someone may not have mobility issues now, but might do down the line, she said. “There needs to be some flexibility around that.”

Still, she said, if we are to look at the best use of the land, it’s to build as much housing in it as possible. “Parking takes up a lot.”

Underground parking isn’t always a great option either, she said. “It’s usually the first to get flooded, with the extreme weather events we're having and the rainfall.”

Also community spaces, green spaces and community buildings shouldn’t be sacrificed to put in car parks, she said.

If a new development has 1,000 residents moving in, and they each have a car, that’s another 1,000 cars further clogging up traffic in the area, she said.

As she sees it, there should also be a greater focus on shared cars for new developments.

So if people need to shop, ferry the kids, or visit a relative some distance away, they can still do that no problem, Cooney said.

Further down the line, the Dart+  programme should bring extra rail service to the city, and the BusConnects redesign of the city’s bus network should bring more options too, she said.

Still, said Lyons, the independent councillor, at Monday’s committee meeting, right now, the trouble that car parking spaces are causing neighbourhoods is unignorable. 

“It can actually tear communities apart,” he said.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.