Cork City Council starts planning enforcement action against itself over car park

A local authority has initiated planning enforcement action on itself over a car park planning case in Cork.

Cork City Council’s head of planning, Pat Ledwidge, confirmed to councillors on Monday that the council has triggered normal enforcement procedures against itself in relation to the development of an unauthorised car park in Mahon.

The council owns the land. The 320-space facility is used by staff of computer storage company EMC. Mr Ledwidge said that, in line with normal enforcement action, which includes the issuing of warning letters, the recipient of such letters has four weeks to respond.

The matter has been complicated by the fact that an application for planning permission has also been submitted on the site.

The news is the latest twist in the bizarre planning situation in Mahon. During the construction of City Gate, the site was licensed by the council for storage and construction traffic.

Zoned since the summer for business and technology use, it is now an unauthorised car park.

Following complaints, it was signalled to City Gate developer John Cleary that the matter had to be addressed, and the council gave him permission to seek planning on land it owns.

Last month, a planning application for the site was lodged by Progressive Commercial Construction Ltd, of which Mr Cleary is a director, seeking permission to retain full planning for three years for the car park on the St Michael’s Drive site.

However, the Irish Examiner reported earlier this month that the future of the car park was in doubt after city planners deemed the application as invalid. They said the developer cannot apply for retention without preparing an environmental impact assessment.

If Mr Cleary now opts to apply for full planning on a site in public ownership, the car park site will have to be vacated. Fine Gael councillor Laura McGonigle tabled a question at Monday’s council meeting seeking an update on what the council was doing about the situation.

She wanted to know when the council would take repossession of the site given that the terms of the original licence issued had been breached, that the planning application that was submitted to regularise the situation was deemed invalid by the council’s own planners, and that the current unauthorised use is contrary to both planning policy and zoning.

However, Mr Ledwidge said a number of processes, including enforcement action, are now underway. He said recipients of warning letters have four weeks in which to respond and that that period has not yet elapsed. He said further action on the car park was unlikely until those processes have concluded.