In Belmayne, challenges with parking complicate efforts to take in charge an estate

Residents in Belmayne and Clongriffin have been asking for years when estates in the area – built out by Cairn Homes and Gannon Homes – would finally be taken in charge by Dublin City Council.

Until that process is completed, the council isn’t responsible for the roads and other public areas, so residents can struggle to get ramps put in to slow traffic, or traffic lights put in to regulate it. 

At a meeting of the council’s North Central Area Committee last month, Derek Dixon, a council executive manager, gave an update on progress. 

A major sticking point when it comes to the Parkside development, built by Cairn Homes, is the fate of the on-street parking, he said. 

Cairn had assigned parking in the estate to residents, he said, which the council – once it takes it in charge – intends to make public.

Last week, residents said they were unhappy with the proposed shift. 

“We knew we would never own the sidewalk outside our front door,” said Maria Mello. But “when we bought the house, we thought those two spaces would always be assigned”, she said, pointing towards the road.

The mismatch between expectations is partly down to the fact that the estates were never meant to be taken in charge by the council, and so weren’t designed and sold with that in mind, said Sinn Féin Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha.

“The idea was that management companies would rule the whole thing,” he said. “But of course, that hasn't worked out.”

Parking problems

It’s worrying, said Daiga Balmaka last week, stepping out of her front door. “If I pay rent, these are my spaces. That’s what we were always told.”

Balmaka was on her way to the car with her son, taking him to football training. “This would be very bad news,” she said.

Before people start panicking just yet, said Councillor Daryl Barron, of Fianna Fáil, nothing is set in stone as to how this change will play out. “We are going to try to find an arrangement that suits everyone.”

The council’s hope is that people can retain the spaces, but that a new arrangement will have to be reached, he said.

The taking-in-charge process can be a slow-mover, said Barron. 

Indeed, a 2017 letter from a Cairn subsidiary to another Parkside resident says the company was talking to the council about the taking-in-charge process.

Among the issues was “the ownership or permanent use of the allocated on-street parking spaces”. In the meantime, the company said it would grant the resident “an exclusive licence to use two designated on-street parking spaces, the location of which will not change”.

Nearly a decade has passed since then. 

Things are now finally gaining momentum in Belmayne and Clongriffin, Barron said. “We're going to have to have it case by case, with all these tenants around their car parking spaces.”

A big issue is what lies under those parking spaces, Barron said.

“There's wires, there's water, there's gas services, there's services that we may need in an emergency to have access to,” he said by phone on Tuesday.

There can’t be a situation where people are squabbling over who has the right to access a spot when work needs to be done, he said.

For Parkside, it’s up to Cairn Homes to engage with the residents and the local councillors and to agree a legal procedure for unfettered access to those spaces if the council is to take the area in charge, he said.

“It's quite contentious. It's quite difficult to do. It doesn't mean that it can't be done,” he said.

Dixon said that Cairn Homes had told him earlier that day, 20 April, that after some complications getting the paperwork together, it had a letter “ready to go”. This would first be sent to councillors, before engaging with residents.

However, it was more positive news than negative when it comes to taking-in-charge of Parkside, said Dixon.

“The vast majority of the estate is in very, very good condition, and it's built differently, say, to old Belmayne,” he said, “in that there are kerbs, there are grass margins, there are footpaths of a reasonable width, the public lighting is okay.”

“The issue is how we go about getting it taken in charge because of the fact that they have assigned the car parking,” he said.

Ultimately though, residents will have to accept that some sort of change is coming in terms of the parking arrangement, said Dixon.

“Residents will either accept it or they won't. That's the way it will work,” he said.

There are some places in the area, around apartment blocks, Dixon said, where parking will remain assigned.

Because an apartment block must have an owner management company (OMC) as a multi-unit development, he said. “It's essential, because you have shared services, you've got shared units.”

However, for the 200 or so houses around the area for whom on-street parking was assigned, “that’s not the norm”. “Parking should not have been assigned.”

Whatever happens next, said Dixon, “residents need to be part of that conversation”.

A spokesperson for Cairn Homes said last week that it is “aware of concerns raised by residents at Parkside regarding the continuing use of dedicated on-street parking spaces”.

“Cairn is working with the Council and residents to put in place a solution which will enable residents to maintain the use of these parking spaces,” the spokesperson said.

That same 2017 letter from the Cairn subsidiary to the resident said that once the council “has made its decision on taking in charge and if such agreement permits” it would sell the resident “the freehold interest in the two on-street parking spaces outright for no additional consideration”.

“Alternatively, your client will continue to occupy the spaces on an exclusive licence and may be required to sign up to a simple form of management company structure,” it said. In that case, the company would “attend to the costs and formalities”.

At April’s North Central Area Committee meeting, independent Councillor John Lyons asked Dixon for a timeline to be sent around, about taking-in-charge processes in the area. 

It should lay out what needs to be done so that progress can be monitored, and people can be held to account, he said.

Dixon agreed but added that it would have to be a provisional timeline, as certain things remain up in the air and out of the council’s control. “We’re takers of this, not makers of this.”

The next move is for the developer to make, said Dixon.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.