Páirc Uí Chaoimh plans: Cork GAA denies 'land grab' accusation
CGI image of the proposed redevelopment of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, showing, on the left, one of the proposed new car parks at the Blackrock end.
Just four years after its €90m regeneration, Cork GAA has defended controversial new Páirc Uí Chaoimh revamp proposals which include plans to build two car parks on public land earmarked for a public park.
Amid claims of "another GAA land-grab", the stadium’s management team insists the new car parks will be public car parks and that they form a key part of an overall project which is vital to ensure the stadium’s long-term commercial viability.
But residents living nearby, who feel the GAA has ignored their concerns about illegal parking and traffic management associated with big game days for years, say the car parks will destroy the city’s vision for Marina Park, the first phase of which is due to open at the city end of the stadium before the end of the year.
The Ballintemple Area Residents Association (BARA) has also dismissed the latest assurances from the stadium managers, pointing to Cork GAA’s poor track record of engagement with them, and its failure to comply with some of the conditions attached to the original grant of planning for the stadium regeneration.
Those conditions included the requirement for a mobility management plan, the appointment of a mobility manager and the provision of on-site bike parking.
A standoff over how much the county board should pay towards the cost of public lighting upgrades in the area was only settled this year.
And BARA says the county board signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with residents in 2014 in which it pledged not to look for more car parking in Marina Park.
Acknowledging that some elements of the revamp will provide “additional facilities for stadium users to enjoy”, BARA has prepared a detailed objection to the planning application ahead of Thursday's deadline.
The redeveloped Páirc Uí Chaoimh opened in July 2017 following its near €90m regeneration, funded in part by a €30m government grant, but by July 2019, it had to close for almost six months to facilitate the replacement of the pitch. It was largely closed last year because of the pandemic, apart from its use as a drive-through testing centre and more recently as a mass vaccination centre.
As the GAA worked last year to devise new structures and prepare a business plan to help tackle the stadium’s near €30m debt, it emerged that Páirc Uí Chaoimh CTR, the company which manages the stadium, was planning a raft of internal stadium reorganisation works and external redevelopments, including two car parks on public land.
This required Cork City Council to first give its consent for the planning application to be submitted.
Council officials gave the required consent and a planning application was lodged this summer for the internal reorganisation and redevelopment of the south stand to include a new GAA museum, exhibition space, visitor centre and cafe, all accessible from the main public concourse connecting Marina Park.
It includes plans to enhance the second floor as a conference venue and for works to facilitate an internal stadium tour route.
External works include new entrances and sheltered porches to the existing city end and Blackrock end, and revised access and egress arrangements to the stadium, including car and bus pick-up and drop-off areas at the city and Blackrock ends.
New bicycle parking stations are proposed at the Monahan Road-Park Avenue junction and on the Marina Park concourse, with a new children's playground proposed close to the Atlantic Pond.
Permission is also sought for ancillary uses to allow for the hosting of conferences and events, hospitality and meetings.
The stadium currently has 126 parking spaces around its perimeter – 39 spaces, including two disabled spaces, which are available regularly (except for major events) at the Blackrock end, and 87 spaces, including four disabled spaces, behind gated access for stadium parking. This gated area is generally closed off to vehicular traffic as it clashes with pedestrian movements in this area.
Just two bus routes operate close to the stadium – the 212 stops a one-minute walk from the stadium, while the 202 stops on the Blackrock Rd, a 10-minute walk from the stadium.
The stadium is also said to be within a “reasonable cycle commute”, 30 minutes, from Blackpool to the north and Magazine Rd to the west.
A mobility management plan submitted as part of the planning application “recognises the need for a certain level of vehicular access and parking provision at the site” and says the location of this “everyday parking” to “promote the use of the stadium as a viable event centre” needs to be sympathetic to other modes of travel to the stadium.
And it is the GAA’s proposal to deliver this additional parking by building two new car parks on public land at either end of the stadium’s all-weather 4G pitch which has generated huge controversy.
It wants to develop a 26-space public car park at the city end, to include a bus turning circle, and an 86-space car park at the Blackrock end, with six bus parking spaces which can be converted to 124 match-day spaces for disabled and VIP parking, for use by those visiting Marina Park and the stadium, with a connection to the existing public parking area close to the Atlantic Pond.
In its submission, BARA said the proposed car parks effectively destroy the valuable open space amenity area and visual linkages within Marina Park and will introduce "multiple dangers to users of the park".
“It will encourage extra traffic to support the commercial development of effectively an events centre which was never envisaged," it says.
“The proposed redevelopment is contrary to an MOU signed between Cork GAA [chairman and secretary] and BARA on September 9, 2014.
“The purpose of the MOU was to ensure BARA’s support for the original [stadium regeneration] planning application and the MOU was signed in good faith and on foot of a number of conditions.
“Without prejudice to other conditions in the MOU, BARA wishes to draw attention to Condition 10 of the MOU which states that ‘Pairc Uí Chaoimh will not look for additional car parking within the Marina Park’. BARA has always acted in good faith to this MOU.”
Developer Michael O’Flynn, one of the directors of Páirc Uí Chaoimh CTR, accepts what's being proposed now should have been included in the regeneration design.
“To be fair to everyone involved at the time, this was an evolving situation but looking at it now, you might say why didn’t this happen initially? But we are where we are and we are about making it work now," he said.
“Developments of this scale and nature are always evolving over time. They don’t just happen day one as anticipated, so what happened here is that we have a situation that needed refinement and needed change.
He also said there was probably fault on the side of both the GAA and the city council for not agreeing an integration strategy to ensure that the revamped stadium could function within a new public park.
“Whilst both uses are here [public park and stadium], there was no integration plan to blend the maximum use of the Marina Park and indeed to accommodate the uses that were required of the stadium,” he said.
“Of course people don’t like change. Of course people think everything should be left as it is.
“But when I come down here, I see a situation where there isn’t a proper entrance [a visible stadium front door] and there isn’t proper parking available for ordinary use, for everyday use.
“And we have a serious disability parking deficit that has to be addressed now and in my opinion this is the opportunity for this and other matters to be dealt with.”
Critics have branded the move to build on public land “another land grab” – a similar accusation was levelled at the GAA when it sought and was granted additional public land from the city council for the development of the 4G pitch.
Mr O'Flynn wants to nail that suggestion.
“This is not a land grab – there is no land transfer being asked or required. There is no land grab – that is a completely false statement that is circulating,” he says.
“There is loads of precedence for putting parking on public land – but it must be for the public benefit.
“This will be public car parking that would be publicly accessible free, unless Cork City Council decides to do otherwise.
“Of course, the GAA will benefit and it will rectify serious deficiencies in the disability parking, and indeed in the everyday use of the stadium, but we are also very keen for the public to understand that this will be used by the public for recreational purposes, probably up to 350 days a year, when there aren’t big matches or a big concert on in the stadium.
“Not alone is there nothing in conflict with the [Marina] park use, it is compatible and it enhances the park use, it enhances the park experience and our proposed cafe and the visitor centre and merchandising area is going to be an attraction.
“Remember, we are talking about a building here that is important not just to Cork but to the region.
“We are now coming in with an application, having had the benefit of some years of experience of running not just matches, not just concerts, but indeed other business events here.
“We have a business plan that needs this building to have a refinement and these refinements enable us to deal with the financial requirements of something of this scale.
“The debt relative to the asset is very acceptable and very much can be met with the projections we have, but like any building or proposition, you have to have the key functions in place and I’m afraid we are not in that position at the moment, and even though it [the stadium] has worked, it will work better and differently.
“I don’t think it’s in a position to work for the future without the application we have put in and without getting a fair consideration of same.
“The debt is something over €30m and there are other assets that will reduce the debt but we have a business plan in place for that, and it can be dealt with, but that business plan is predicated upon the improvements and changes that are proposed.
“We are talking about attracting business here that could go to other cities in Ireland or abroad so we are talking about having a unique stadium in a unique setting but it needs change to maximise, not just for the stadium but for everyone.”
Another director of Páirc Uí Chaoimh CTR, and Cork GAA chief executive, Kevin O’Donovan, said “debt or no debt”, the stadium needs to be commercially successful.
“This stadium is supposed to generate profits for the county board to put back into games for boys and girls,” he said.
“It’s about commercial gain to invest in grassroots. There are 50 revenue streams identified in the business plan.
“A lot of them are predicated on these works, such as making it a destination centre, conferences we could bring to the region, making it a more welcoming environment in terms of all commercial aspects, be it abseiling in the stadium, kids’ blitzes, museums, coffee shops, tourism.”
He accepts the county board hasn’t always engaged well with local residents, but he says improvements are being made – a community liaison officer has been appointed and there are plans to appoint a sustainability officer.
He said while the GAA has a short-term parking arrangement on the nearby Live at the Marquee site, earmarked by developers Glenveagh for 1,000 apartments, they are working to secure additional parking facilities along Centre Park Road and Monahan Road.
“All of that plugs into us fitting in – we want to fit into this area because stadiums in other countries either fit into the urban centre or they are taken out and they’re like warehouses on the edge of the city. We want to be the former,” he said.
“We feel that these works will help that sustainability, and we will stop the parking on kerbs, and we will stop the parking in residential areas by giving a limited amount of parking here for the public on non-match days and for our use on match days."
He said they have been meeting with residents' groups to discuss traffic arrangements around big games and he accepts that "there may have been gaps".
"But we are working with everybody to close them. But we need some element of car parking around the stadium. Otherwise we are in denial," he said.
“There has been a huge handover in the stadium since it opened, from those who built the stadium to Croke Park having an involvement, and now very much under Cork management again so every time there are issues, and if you ask the residents, they will tell you they’re fixed the next time around. So we are learning on the job and communicating.”
One of those residents, BARA co-chair Colm O’Leary doesn’t entirely agree.
“We seem to get improvement from one game to the next, but when the next season comes, there’s a new stadium manager, or another new person has been appointed, and it’s like we have to start all over again. But we will continue to engage with and work with the GAA to make match days and big event days better," he said.
Green Party councillor Dan Boyle said, apart from his opposition to providing additional car parking in the context of a climate emergency, the GAA’s poor record of engaging with the community undermines public confidence in what can be believed from the association now.
“The GAA has already been given €30m in taxpayers’ money for the redevelopment of Páirc Uí Chaoimh. The lack of forethought and planning is astounding,” he said.
“The stadium authorities have been poor in terms of following through on any previous commitments around bike parking provision, advocating for greater public transport use, or supervising traffic around big matches. Stadium managers should be advocating for more bus links and for park and ride facilities."
But crucially, he said this is the third proposed modification that compromises the original Marina Park design.
“The first was the city’s decision to sell some land to the GAA to expand the stadium curtilage, the second was to allow the all-weather pitch, and now this. The combination of all three compromises the very existence of a linear park,” he said.
Fine Gael councillor Des Cahill, who represents the area, said those advancing this revamp “have refused point-blank” to consider alternatives that could minimise the impact on the public vision for Marina Park.
He said many of the parking issues could be resolved by reallocating the existing parking spaces around the stadium, and he branded the repeated insistence that the revamp plan would help address a deficit in disabled parking as “an appalling tactic”.
“And we must remember that the EU gave the city council €3.5m for the development of Marina Park based on the designs which didn’t have car parks slap bang in the middle of it,” he said.
Fellow ward councillor, Fianna Fáil's Terry Shannon, said the city needs the stadium to be profitable and that while the car parks are an issue, the other elements seem reasonable.
“Look, we’ve been dealt this hand and now we need it to work,” he said.
“Previous stadium management ignored us but we have made some progress in recent months on outstanding issues.
“The manner in which it will be managed in the future will be crucial and I will hold Michael O’Flynn publicly accountable for the promises he’s made."
The closing date for submissions on the planning application is Thursday, with a planning decision due by the middle of next month.
If planning is granted, a material contravention of the city development plan will be required, which requires a two-third majority of the 31-strong council to be approved.
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