On the contrary, apartments have limited parking to nudge people away from cars – and the council should hold the line on that, and introduce other nudges too, some transport committee members suggested.
Around midday on Tuesday, kids were playing in Weaver Park off Cork Street in the sun, laughing, their parents watching on, or playing too.
On the park's south and east sides rise two red-brick apartment buildings – Weavers Place and Poplin Place – which top out at seven storeys. Their planning permission was for 55 apartments, and five car parking spaces.
Back in April, local councillors Darragh Moriarty, of Labour, and Ciarán Ó Meachair, of Sinn Féin, raised at the local area committee that residents of these buildings, unable to get parking within, had tried to get residential parking permits from the council so they could park on the surrounding streets, and they'd been refused.
"Can this please be reviewed?" Moriarty asked the council managers, in a written question.
The committee backed a motion from Ó Meachair calling for people living in apartments facing onto Chamber Street and, beyond, the park, to be able to get such parking permits. The issue was referred to the council's transport committee.
Answering the door to his mum's place in Poplin Place on Tuesday, Josh Usher said residents there absolutely should be able to get on-street parking permits. Ava Stapleton, a few doors down, said the same.
"There's loads of young women here with kids, and they should have free parking," said Stapleton, who volunteered that she's a Sinn Féin member. "I can't believe they wouldn't give them a permit."
But parking in new apartment buildings like this across the city is limited – by council and national policies – to push residents to switch away from cars, and walk, cycle or use public transport instead, Dublin City Council's head of traffic, Brendan O'Brien, told the council's transport committee at a meeting last Wednesday.
Providing less parking in apartment buildings keeps construction costs down. And if people go without cars, the idea is, that'll reduce traffic congestion, air pollution, and carbon emissions that contribute to the climate changes that are bringing on more volatile weather, higher temperatures, and rising sea levels.
"Undermining that by then providing permits out in the street just seems to be going against that particular policy of trying to have the more sustainable modes of transport," O'Brien said. And besides, in most parts of the city, there wouldn't be room on the streets for more cars to park, he said.
When Green Party Councillor David Healy in January proposed allowing apartment residents to get on-street parking permits in Fingal, council managers there gave much the same answers. And Fingal's new parking by-laws exclude residents of "purpose-built" apartment buildings from getting on-street residential parking permits.
At last Wednesday's meeting of the transport committee, formally called the Mobility and Public Realm Strategic Policy Committee, O'Brien and council parking enforcement officer Kenneth Murphy presented a report on the issue.
Apartment buildings within the canals are limited to a maximum of 0.5 parking spaces per apartment, and those outside the canals to 1 parking space per apartment, said Murphy.
Within these apartment complexes, even a resident who was able to get access to one of the limited number of car parking spaces would have to pay a substantial monthly fee to use it – maybe €100 or €200 a month, so as much as €2,400 a year – vastly more than the cost of an on-street residential parking permit from the council, which goes for as little as €40 a year.
"The cost of a parking space in an apartment complex is just so wildly more expensive than the cost of an on-street parking space," said Green Party Councillor Janet Horner, who chairs the committee.
But the report, O'Brien, and Murphy were all clear that allowing people this way around parking limitations, and prices, in their apartment buildings would go against national policy. "We wouldn't be able to go against government policy in this instance," Murphy said.
No member of the committee spoke in favour of finding a way to let apartment dwellers get on-street residential parking permits. On the contrary, some said the council should be going even further to get people to avoid using cars in the city.
One option is the carrot.
Would it be possible to "incentivise residents in houses to forgo parking permits perhaps by offering them free bike bunkers, freeing up parking spaces for others"? asked Zoe Baker, of the Blend Residents Association, who sits on the committee.
Yes, said, Horner, the Green Party councillor, "a lot of people who don't have cars or don't keep cars in the city don't feel the benefit – there's no sort of reward for them for making those spaces available for other people".
Another option is the stick.
What about increasing the cost of residential parking permits for on-street parking? suggested Jason Cullen, of the Dublin Commuter Coalition, who is a member of the committee
"I'm curious whether cost being considered as a potential way to reduce demand for parking. It's outrageously cheap for residential permits," he said.
And, said Horner, "there's no real coherence to why there would be that massive cost difference" between parking in an apartment complex, and parking on the street, said Horner.
"Possibly the unfortunate answer to that is making it much more expensive for some people and that's not going to be popular," she said.
O'Brien, head of traffic, pointed out that he'd suggested this before. "At the time the proposals were not that well received," he said.
About a year ago, O'Brien brought a discussion paper to the transport committee, with three policy issues for members to consider as part of the process of the council working up new parking bye-laws.
One issue up for discussion was whether to increase the price of residential parking permits, which according to that 2025 discussion paper, have cost the same since 2011 – and according to O'Brien at the meeting last week, since 2013.
There were a couple of possible ways of doing this, and under one model a yellow-zone permit would jump from €50 to €225 per year, with pro-rata increases in cheaper zones.
“My initial reaction is outrage,” said Noel Rigney, chair of the Iona and District Residents’ Association, which covers Drumcondra, home to Croke Park, and Glasnevin.
Sinn Féin Councillor Micheál MacDonncha said his party would not support an increase that big. Independent Councillor Nial Ring said he wouldn't object to an increase, but not one that was too steep.
"I think the principle of increasing the permits had been accepted, but not potentially the amount that we were proposing at the time," O'Brien said at last week's transport committee meeting.
"So we had committed to coming back with a proposal on that to be included in the next set of bye-laws, so we hope to be able to do that at the next [transport committee meeting]", he said.
"Even if we apply a CPI to it, consumer price index, from 2013, to 2026, I think that would be fair," he said.
That might increase the annual cost of a residential parking permit from €40 to €52, according to the Central Statistics Office's (CSO's) CPI Inflation Calculator.
Standing outside her front door on Tuesday at midday, looking out on a quiet Chamber Street, with some cars parked, but plenty of empty spaces, Stapleton said she thought all this was outrageous.
"How do they have such disregard for how difficult people's lives already are?" she asked. "I know one mother who has a disabled child. That child needs a car. His mother needs a car."
That's an issue Labour Councillor Fiona Connelly raised at the committee meeting last week.
"I understand there's no residential parking permits for people who are living in apartment blocks, but is there any consideration for people who need them for disability or accessibility?" she asked.
Yes, said O'Brien, the council's head of traffic, "blue badge holders are entitled to park for free at any parking -- at any of the Dublin City Council parking spaces, including those in residential areas", he said.
"It doesn't have to be a defined handicap space or a disabled space, they can park for free once they have a legitimate blue badge," he said.
Even as many people moving into new apartment buildings in the city have been told to try to find ways to get by without cars, and charged high fees for spots if they can get them, life in a house in the city is often very different.
While build-to-rent apartment complexes are, for the most part, a new phenomenon in Dublin, there are many older parts of the city, with houses that were built in more car-friendly times.
In these areas, a house might well have a driveway for a person's car. Or, even if it doesn't, there might be free on-street parking nearby.
Or, even if there's not proper free on-street parking, the house might be in one of the areas of the city where the council has decided to turn a blind eye to parking on the footpaths.
Or, maybe there's a pay and display and residential parking scheme in the area, to keep people from outside the area from taking up all the spots, and residents have to pay €40.
There's a real "inequity of access to parking and the cost of parking in the city", said Horner, the Green Party councillor.
"I think we need to look at alternative ideas, whereby everyone could go on a needs-based assessment," said Baker.
"As you can imagine, you've got 20 parking spaces, and we come along and say we're going to take out two of them or something like that to give spaces for people on bikes, it doesn't go down particularly well."
"There are no current plans or active discussions taking place for automation ... of Luas, heavy rail, DART or buses in Dublin," according to a Department of Transport spokesperson. But these kinds of changes are creeping across the world.
Where, and how, should the council spend its money?
It's the latest district heating project to be proposed in the Dublin area. This one is focused on plugging in neighbouring industrial buildings.
