Cork City: A resilient, equitable, liveable place for all

03 Your City: Your City in Profile

Growth should happen from the centre out, whether this is the centre of the city or the centre of a neighbourhood. We should focus on “15 minute city” - everything that the resident needs should be within 15 minutes walk or cycle from the person’s door, be it work, shopping, education, health, culture or amenity. Compact growth should be to the forefront of all proposed residential developments with a focus on medium rise 6-8 floors (max) and high density. We should focus on the liveability of neighbourhoods so that these higher density areas become a magnet for all, a place everyone wants to live.

Actions:

1. Parking surcharges on out-of-town retail and business parking, especially surface parking as it is the least efficient use of space.
2. Increase on-street parking fees while reducing on street parking spaces gradually.
3. Install bike bunkers in key urban neighbourhoods, especially the city centre neighbourhoods. Private landlords often refuse to allow tenants to store their bikes inside their homes. This is a push towards buying a car so secure, reasonable priced bike bunker space can act as a pull towards maintaining bike ownership. Price per bike bunker slot should be commensurate with cost of resident parking. If its costs 20€ a year to have residents parking then it should cost 5€ a year to have a space in a 4 berth bike bunker. If this is too low then the resident parking fee is also too low and both should be increased.
4. Encourage carshare schemes such as Go-Car to set up in more neighbourhoods in Cork. Trial options like 1 year free bike bunker space and 1 year free Go-Car membership if people will give up their resident’s permit for a year.
5. Being able to own a car and live in the city is important to some. This parking should not be removed or threatened unless credible alternatives are in place. There should be a pull towards these alternatives. For example: availability of Go-car car sharing and bike bunkers. Or long term car storage on the outskirts of the city close to a regular bus route.
6. Brown field sites should be re-developed in favour of greenfield in line with the NPF “Compact Growth”.
7. Department of Education and HSE/Department of Health should be liaised with and developments of new sites should be in line key outcomes from the NPF (1, 4, 8, 10) to ensure available provision of schools and medical facilities are within 15 minutes walk or cycle from peoples homes. City Council should have input into the development of school catchments to avoid the likes of Lenaghmore being included in the Carrigaline Catchment (no bus service, no active transport links, locking in car dependency)
8. Redevelopment of existing city housing stock should be encouraged by owner occupiers and housing co-operatives. Long term residency has a community building effect. The high levels of private rental accommodation and its associated lack of security of tenure in the city centre has a negative impact community cohesion and the normal bonds that develop in communities. City Council should seek to rebalance the city centre trend towards private rental in favour of home ownership, social housing and cooperative housing.
9. Dereliction and vacancy of residential housing in the city should be discouraged by whatever means City Council has at its disposal.  
10. Co-working hubs/community centres in developed in each of the new Community Response Forum Sectors

05 Climate Change

Actions:

1. Community power generation should be encouraged in the city. Many of us have roofs that can optimise solar PV but it may not be cost effective in the current system to do this in isolation. It is more cost effective to carry this out collectively. City Council could facilitate a trial to be carried out in one neighbourhood and the learnings from this used to scale upwards city wide.
2. “De-paving” should be encouraged whether this is on public thoroughfares or on previously paved private land. All of the below would give access to nature in more locations that is currently possible. While an individual engaging in this action on its own might lead to minor improvements to local percolations rates, the instituting of a city-wide policy with incentives on a greater scale may allow for a meaningful engagement. Local community groups or residents could be asked to engage in some maintenance and planting. This would give ownership to locals and develop place-making.
   1. On-street parking should be targeted as a de-paving opportunity, especially in areas identified lacking in greenery and are subject to surface flooding. These could be converted to a swale or rain garden. Areas where many do not have access to nearby green spaces or private gardens should be turned into parklets. Whilst a trial of a wooden parklet may be necessary; the ultimate goal should be to dig up the road surface under the parking spot and landscape it. This would allow for slower run-off through soil percolation, lower maintenance plantings, place-making and community building giving neighbourhoods/single streets more of a focal point. Specific car parking spots or other unused spaces could be chosen for their potential to aid with run-off, ie those that are in a dip close to a surface water flooding area. This should be done in collaboration with residents.
   2. Private dwellings owners should be encouraged to de-pave. A specific neighbourhood could be trialled. Removing paving, disposal of waste, relaying soil and choosing appropriate plants and trees could be beyond the capacity & financial ability of many owners. Trialling in one small community would allow City Council to see its effectiveness and the possibilities of rolling it out to further areas. The chosen areas could have their work carried out collectively. The preparation work; removing paving/disposal and top soil laying could be provided by the city council funding. The cost of top soil and plants (raw materials) could be paid for by the property owner.
   3. Local businesses could be encouraged to de-pave at their premises. Businesses could be encouraged to include such actions in their Community Social Responsibility actions and climate change/sustainability programmes.
3. Removing of gardens for parking should be discouraged and planning strictly enforced in the area as a means to reduce flooding in the city. If parking is granted it should be modest and some greening remain.
4. Green Roofs should be encouraged where appropriate. Again, these aid in the slowing down rain fall collection. Other local authorities already set out policies in this area. Green roofs are more expensive. Any incentives that are available through city council to encourage their use should be utilised. This may include holding information nights, webinars, “ask the experts” open nights or creating a local authority policy that sets out the benefits and shows the council’s willingness to entertain such structures in its planning department.
5. Create biodiversity corridors that crisscross the city with “stepping stones” where breaks must occur. These could be combined with the implementation of greenways and blueways.
6. City Buses switching away from old diesel engines
7. Data-Driven: City Council should fund a land use survey including a full tree survey of the city. Space allocated to surface parking should be a metric the city uses to show its success in reallocation and improvement of public space and liveability. Street Clutter should be included in the survey.
8. HGV Ban from within the inner ring roads (northside imagined at present) as suggested in the CMATS but fully implemented. A timeline for moving away from HGV transport in the city should be implemented to aid businesses to adapt. Bin collection companies should move to truck models that give the driver higher levels of vision. Some bin collection companies in Cork have already begun to switch to these models.  

1. Electric last mile delivery should be encouraged. The use of e-cargobikes should be encouraged for the new city centre area as per issues paper as over this distance and density e-cargobikes are more efficient, take up less space, cause less damage road surfaces and are less likely to cause path obstructions from illegal parking.

07 A diverse economy

To maintain local retail we must discourage online shopping and encourage local shopping

Actions

1. Create local “co-working hubs” in every community response forum area. This will encourage people to stay in their own neighbourhoods when we re-open from Covid-19. With more footfall in local areas, local businesses are more likely to thrive.
2. Encourage walking, cycling and a reduction in motorised traffic, on street parking and illegal parking.

09 City Centre, Suburbs, Towns and city hinterland

Actions:

1. The City Centre Core is home to some 25,000 + people. These inner city areas should be acknowledged as a home space, not just a centre for retail or office or business activity. Every effort should be made to improve liveability, reduce motorised traffic and increase access to green and blue spaces here.
2. Safe Injecting Centre(s) for the city. Could be aligned with existing health campuses like the South Infirmary and the Mercy. I live in an area that has problems with sharps. I would prefer to see people treated with dignity, care & respect in a safe injecting centre.
3. Public Toilets are an access issue. The lack of public toilets in the city means people cannot access the city centre for many activities and limit their time there. This is especially of issue with Covid-19.
4. An end to greenfield development in the hinterland. Greenfield sites should remain farming, amenity or set aside to combat biodiversity loss. Infrastructure cannot be afforded to these locations as it locks in car dependency and does not support compact growth. Making our cores more attractive and liveable will mean more will want to live in our centres, whether they are the city centres or the centre of our urban villages and towns.
5. All areas in the city’s urbanised areas should have access to green spaces, both locally and in the hinterland. All urban areas should be connected to hinterland via active travel and/or public transport links. This also serves to link up those in the hinterland with the city in a sustainable way.

What stops young families staying in the city centre once they have children?

I am the chair of Cuidiu Cork. We are a national charity that supports families & carers, especially in the early years. As a city centre resident, I often meet parents at the start of their parenting journey. They are often living in rental accommodation with poor security of tenure. Many cannot see a future for themselves living in the city centre and will choose to move to the suburbs if they can. This is not because they do not love living in the city, but because of some neglected aspects of city life, that if addressed, could see more choosing city life and its connectedness. We are less rich without the diversity that young and growing families bring to communities.

1. Lack of green spaces/access to nature
2. High level of car traffic
3. Narrow, uneven footpaths unsafe for pushing buggies and walking with small children
4. Perceived lack of school spaces in the city centre
5. Lack of high quality, reasonably priced homes to buy or rent
6. Lack of social housing/security of tenure for tenants.
7. Difficulty with renting while renovating an older, substandard home in order to bring it up to standard.

12 Green infrastructure, open space and recreation

Many of these questions are addressed elsewhere. These are all key to livability so some of this is covered under that section.

1. Land survey of city: green spaces, street clutter, tree numbers, road space, private car parking, especially surface parking. Measured and tracked over time. (ArcGIS)
2. Time spent outdoors as a measure of success of city measures (City of Copenhagen use this as a measure)