> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.dublininquirer.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # In Stoneybatter, residents seek closer consideration of "home zones" as a parking solution - URL: https://www.dublininquirer.com/in-stoneybatter-residents-seek-closer-consideration-of-home-zones-as-a-parking-solution/ - Published: 2026-11-04T00:02:57.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-04T00:02:57.000Z - Description: In other jurisdictions, residents count many upsides from such a streetscape design, but maybe not those intended in this case. - Author: Sam Tranum - Tags: parking, Transport, City Desk About midday last Wednesday, Ciara Black got out of her car to move an orange cone saving a parking space in front of her house in Montpelier Gardens, in Dublin 7\. Then she finished parking her car, and took a minute to talk about the parking situation on this older, low-rise estate of about 40 homes in the shadow of the new high-rise Montpelier development now under construction. "Fuck Montpelier – it's O'Devaney Gardens!" yelled a man passing by who'd overheard the conversation, referring to the council [flats that stood on the site](https://www.dublininquirer.com/bard-of-the-blocks/) before they were torn down to be replaced by developer Bartra's [new apartments at Montpelier](https://www.dublininquirer.com/councillors-vote-through-deal-to-redevelop-o-devaney-gardens-after-fraught-debate/). But Montpelier Gardens came before any of that. It was built in the 1930s Black said, before most people in the area owned cars. So the homes here don't have driveways, and there's not much space for cars along the estate's streets, either. So residents park two-wheels up on the footpath, to make sure there's enough room for all the cars, and enough room for bin trucks and emergency vehicles to still fit down the centre of the roadway. And pedestrians too, since there's no space to walk down the footpaths. It's a situation familiar to many parts of Dublin city. The council generally turned a blind eye to the footpath parking in Montpelier Gardens, Black says. This is in line with long-standing practice, as well as a [decision in 2021](https://www.dublininquirer.com/council-committee-decides-to-continue-to-allow-some-parking-on-footpaths/) by councillors that the council should ignore illegal footpath parking under certain circumstances. But earlier this year, Black says, parking on the street was getting a little crazy, with spillover from Montpelier next door, and the courts down the hill on Conyngham Road. And someone complained. Parking-enforcement came along and issued fines to some of the cars along the road parked halfway onto the footpaths. And that kicked off a whole thing, Black said. Irritated residents. A search for solutions. At a recent meeting of the council's Central Area Committee, Fine Gael Councillor Ray McAdam offered an approach he said might suit Montpelier Gardens. "This would be outside-the-box thinking, that I think would be something that could be translated or utilised in other parts of the city," he said. ## **The idea** Most front gardens could not fit a car, even if the residents wanted that, and the council allowed them to convert the gardens to parking spaces, says Black. And many residents need their cars, even though they live in the city, Black says. For example, her work requires driving, and she's a kid to deliver to D4 in the mornings, and collect later, she says. So the question is how to make sure there's enough space for everyone to park in the limited space in the roadway, she says. "I don't think people would be happy if they can't park outside their house here," she said. Moving to an official council parking scheme on the street, combining low-priced long-term permits for residents, and higher-priced pay-and-display parking for visitors, would actually reduce the number of spaces available, says McAdam, the Fine Gael councillor. That's because that'd require officially demarcated car-parking spaces on the street, and there'd only be room for that along one side of the road – so that'd eliminate existing informal/illegal parking down the other side of the road. So the idea McAdam brought to the council was to turn the whole roadway – street and footpaths alike – into a "shared space". Answering his door last Wednesday in a house around the corner from Black's, Paul Clerkin, asked about this idea, brightens up. "It was my suggestion," he says, standing in his front hall, with a cargo-bike in his front garden, wearing a Huel t-shirt. The way he sees it, it'd involve removing the footpaths, and making the whole roadway a shared space. McAdam, speaking by phone a few days after the Central Area Committee meeting, said the idea was that "everyone is able to use the shared space equally, and that ultimately they take precedence over the car, but that the car still is, but that householders are still able to park their vehicles immediately adjacent to their house or in the vicinity of their home". It's not a new idea, Clerkin says. Such streets exist as "Home Zones" in Britain, and the Living Streets in the Netherlands. And Dublin city councillors have called for them at least as far back as 2018, when the transport committee [agreed a motion](https://councilmeetings.dublincity.ie/documents/g3676/Printed%20minutes%2014th-Nov-2018%2015.00%20Mobility%20and%20Public%20Realm%20SPC.pdf?T=1&ref=dublininquirer.com) from then Fine Gael Councillor Paddy Smyth to call on the Minister for Transport to change the legislation to allow for the introduction of "Living Streets". It's an [image of a Home Zone in Bristol's Southville](http://elemental-landscape-architects.co.uk/index.php?page=southville-home-zones&ref=dublininquirer.com) that McAdams shares by WhatsApp as an example of what residents suggested, and he presented. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9f/78/9f782dda-9dc9-44d1-b817-fe80588bdc76/content/images/2026/11/This-is-the-image-Ray-McAdam-sent-me.-I-think-it-s-of-a-home-zone-in-Bristol--check-it-against-the-link-in-the-article-to-see-what-you-think.jpeg) A home zone in Bristol. Image via Ray McAdam. Ireland doesn't have Living Streets or Home Zones in this sense, but the laws and regulations here do provide for [shared zones](https://revisedacts.lawreform.ie/eli/1997/si/182/section/45A/revised/en/html?ref=dublininquirer.com). In these, drivers must yield the right of way to pedestrians, who can cross at any location. The council could bring in a special 20kph speed limit for the street, resurface it side to side with a special surface, put in plantings, and put up "[Shared Zone" signs](https://revisedacts.lawreform.ie/eli/1997/si/182/section/45A/revised/en/html?ref=dublininquirer.com). ## **Challenges** But if the idea is to create more space for parking vehicles in a way that doesn't block footpaths, putting a Home Zone into Montpelier Gardens might not be the solution. Reviews of the Home Zones in Britain find they have many good points. The idea was to "rebalance the priorities in residential streets away from motor traffic, in favour of 'streets as living spaces'; enabling social activity such as play, and non-motorised movement", according to a [2006 review](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28864873-southville/?ref=dublininquirer.com) by the University of the West of England, Bristol's Centre for Transport and Society. As part of that review, researchers asked residents about six "quality of life variables". Bringing in the the Home Zone brought improvement on five of the six. Home Zone residents "firmly reported spending more time outside in the street, engaging more in both informal interaction and organised street activities", the review found. "Children were also reported as playing more in the street, and it was similarly felt that the streets were safer for play." "The factor showing a (small) increase in concern levels was 'parking'," the review found. "This had been arguably the most concerning and divisive issue raised in the consultation process by residents." The roadway was relatively narrow, "so there was not much space to re-allocate", even by bringing in "echelon" parking, where cars are parked at a 45-degree angle to the kerbs, instead of parallel to it. "In Southville it seems likely there was a small reduction in the amount of parking as a result of the HZ streets and Focal Point, exactly how many spaces and the significance of the reduction is open to debate," the review found. Then reisdents from surrounding streets said they had parking problems because of residents of the Home Zone couldn't park there anymore and spilled over, it said. The review says that in the guidelines for Woonerf, the Living Streets in the Netherlands, "it is made clear that the designation of a street will normally lead to a reduction in the parking capacity", it said. Even if Dublin City Council engineers could find a shared-space design that would create more parking spaces in Montpelier Gardens, that would not necessarily solve the estate's parking problems. Wouldn't that just mean more people who can't find parking in neighbouring Montpelier, or near the courts down the road, would come into the estate to park? "You'd think that," says Clerkin, "but it's designed to prioritise life on the road".