Cork council merger plans to be axed but extension of city boundary recommended

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

Reputable Rog wrote: »

Where is this magic money going to come from?

I think it should come from central funding. Having Cork as a strong second city is a matter of national importance.

Water John

That will go down really well. I think the rest of the country think Cork people are full of their own importance enough, without they funding it more.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

Water John wrote: »

That will go down really well. I think the rest of the country think Cork people are full of their own importance enough, without they funding it more.

Cork, Kildare and Dublin are the only counties in the country that are a net benefit to the national coffers. I can look for the website if you want a link.

Considering having a strong second city is a matter of national importance, I think it would be value for money.

MrDerp

Reputable Rog wrote: »

MacKinnon's a done deal, talk of the city leasing parts of the County Hall to accommodate the extra staff.
May be industrial action as well due to staff not happy to accept new conditions of employment with the city.

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/contracts_of_employment/transfer_of_business.html

They would be hired under existing terms and conditions under TUPE regulations. We have decent worker protections for mergers, business purchases, outsourcing deals and the like.

Meursault

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

Cork, Kildare and Dublin are the only counties in the country that are a net benefit to the national coffers. I can look for the website if you want a link.

Considering having a strong second city is a matter of national importance, I think it would be value for money.

it would be interesting to read about that. can you post the link?

Everyone knows the city boundaries need to be expanded. What we are seeing is the city council pushing the boundary as far out as possible, knowing they probably wont get all that they are looking for. Likewise, county council kicking up a fuss, to ensure the proposed extension does not happen. They will come to a compromise. I can see Ballincolig, existing suburbs, airport and maybe Little Island, moving within city boundaries. the rest is a bit unrealistic.

Water John

I think the fight is largely down to Ballincollig. M8 is far east enough, a natural/man made boundary.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

Meursault wrote: »

it would be interesting to read about that. can you post the link?

Everyone knows the city boundaries need to be expanded. What we are seeing is the city council pushing the boundary as far out as possible, knowing they probably wont get all that they are looking for. Likewise, county council kicking up a fuss, to ensure the proposed extension does not happen. They will come to a compromise. I can see Ballincolig, existing suburbs, airport and maybe Little Island, moving within city boundaries. the rest is a bit unrealistic.

Can't seem to find it right now, I will look properly later. It was a few years ago but on the website it had a table of money in by county and money out by county.

This link will have to do for now, but certainly demonstrates similar. There is 8 counties below, I think that doesn't include corporation tax income though, so when that is included it brings the net contributing counties down to 3, Cork, Dublin and Kildare.

Adding social transfers to primary income and subtracting off income taxes and social insurance contributions, results in
disposable income. In the counties of Dublin, Kildare, Meath , Wicklow, Cork, Kilkenny, Limerick and Galway, primary
income significantly exceeded disposable income in 2014 (see Table 1). These are the counties
with high employment rates as indicated in the results of the 2011 Census.

Roger Hassenforder

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

Can't seem to find it right now, I will look properly later. It was a few years ago but on the website it had a table of money in by county and money out by county.

This link will have to do for now, but certainly demonstrates similar. There is 8 counties below, I think that doesn't include corporation tax income though, so when that is included it brings the net contributing counties down to 3, Cork, Dublin and Kildare.

Adding social transfers to primary income and subtracting off income taxes and social insurance contributions, results in
disposable income. In the counties of Dublin, Kildare, Meath , Wicklow, Cork, Kilkenny, Limerick and Galway, primary
income significantly exceeded disposable income in 2014 (see Table 1). These are the counties
with high employment rates as indicated in the results of the 2011 Census.

I can't find the article yours referencing either, but IIRC, it's not personal income within areas as per above, it's the LAs income, I.e revenue. Only Cork County and the 4 Dublin authorities were self financing.

rebs23

Website here in relation to Local Authority funding;
http://localauthorityfinances.com/spending/5/

Some figures really grabbed my attention;
In 2017 Cork County Council has a budget of €306.8m or €736 per person.
In 2017 Limerick City and County Council has a budget of €371.3m or €1,902 per person.
In 2017 Cork City Council has a budget of €152.6m or €1,215 per person.
In 2017 Dublin City Council has a budget of €862.6m or €1,559 per person.
In 2017 Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has a budget of €171.7m or €790 per person.
In 2017 Fingal County Council has a budget of €216.0m or €729 per person.
In 2017 South Dublin County Council has a budget of €228.0m or €818 per person.
In 2017 Galway City Council has a budget of €75.2m or €946 per person.
In 2017 Waterford City and County Council has a budget of €118.4m or €1,017 per person.
In 2017 Galway County Council has a budget of €105.2m or €588 per person.

You would expect that the City centre areas or Councils would have a greater rate base with shops and commercial premises. The Limerick figure is a serious outlier and relates to Central Government funding for the council there to build office blocks or knock houses.
There is also a comparison in relation to income. In fairness the City Council have approximately 12% of their Budget from Central Government funding sources including the LPT equalisation fund.
In the County Council area the funding from Central Government is approx. 24% which is also pretty good. Both Cork City and County Council seem to be far more efficient than other Councils especially Limerick City and County Council where nearly 55% of it's budget comes from Central Government funding.
In fairness both Cork City and Cork County Council seem to be the most efficient in the country in terms of not being a drain on Central Government funding. Galway City Council and Fingal also do well but in terms of a % of the Council budget from Central Government Cork receives less of it's budget from Central Government than any other Local Authority.

flaneur

It's a mixture of Cork being one of the wealthiest parts of Ireland and also economies of scale in the sense that it's a higher population density.

Dublin and Cork are on a seriously different scale to any other local authority area.

rebs23

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

I can't find the article yours referencing either, but IIRC, it's not personal income within areas as per above, it's the LAs income, I.e revenue. Only Cork County and the 4 Dublin authorities were self financing.

Income figures here:http://localauthorityfinances.com/income/5/

In summary from Central Government the following amounts are dispersed in grants/subsidies.
Cork City Council €19 Million (Pop 125,000)
Cork County Council €73 Million (Pop 417,000)
Dublin City Council €198 Million (Pop 530,000)
Limerick City and County Council €198 Million (Pop 196,000)
Galway County €35 Million (Pop 178,000)
Galway City Council €12 Million (Pop 80,000)
DLR € 31 Million (Pop 212,000)
Waterford City and County € 34 Million (Pop 116,000)

It would be really interesting to know the LPT income from the various Council's but it seems pretty clear that Cork City generates more than €19 million in property taxes and that Cork County generates more than €73 million (is that a fair assumption?) so therefore people of Cork rejoice in the amount you subsidise our near neighbours!
The real issue for Cork is not where the boundary is drawn as it has to be redrawn but why do the Council's in Cork recieve such a small percentage of their budgets or such a small percentage per head of population from Central Government.
The Property Tax should stay a local tax!

Roger Hassenforder

rebs23 wrote: »

Income figures here:http://localauthorityfinances.com/income/5/

In summary from Central Government the following amounts are dispersed in grants/subsidies.
Cork City Council €19 Million (Pop 125,000)
Cork County Council €73 Million (Pop 417,000)
Dublin City Council €198 Million (Pop 530,000)
Limerick City and County Council €198 Million (Pop 196,000)
Galway County €35 Million (Pop 178,000)
Galway City Council €12 Million (Pop 80,000)
DLR € 31 Million (Pop 212,000)
Waterford City and County € 34 Million (Pop 116,000)

It would be really interesting to know the LPT income from the various Council's but it seems pretty clear that Cork City generates more than €19 million in property taxes and that Cork County generates more than €73 million (is that a fair assumption?) so therefore people of Cork rejoice in the amount you subsidise our near neighbours!
The real issue for Cork is not where the boundary is drawn as it has to be redrawn but why do the Council's in Cork recieve such a small percentage of their budgets or such a small percentage per head of population from Central Government.
The Property Tax should stay a local tax!

80% of LPT stays local, 20% goes back into an equalization fund to be distributed between Councils. Makes interesting reading:
http://www.publicpolicy.ie/distribution-of-the-local-property-tax-how-the-equalisation-fund-works/

Cork City is a net beneficiary of the LPT , the County isn't - i.e. some County LPT ends up in the City!

(Motor tax revenue/distribution was another interesting one back in the days of the LGF before Irish Water trousered it, but that's another story)

DylanGLC

I am confused as to how towns like Ballincollig or Glanmire are going to lose their 'identity' by changing council? Interesting that Blarney seems to be for the proposal to join the city

https://mobile.twitter.com/EoinBearla/status/905148263866798080?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet

Roger Hassenforder

DylanGLC wrote: »

Interesting that Blarney seems to be for the proposal to join the city

Was there a plebiscite?

flaneur

Considering that none of those towns have town councils and actually none of them ever had in the first place, they're losing absolutely nothing and have a lot to gain by having an urban local authority looking after them in terms of getting treated as urban areas instead of rural towns.

Under the current regime Ballincollig has basically been developed into a massively long strip that is like a "Sraid Bhaile" on an absolutely vast scale And shows a lot of signs of total lack of urban planning. It's not even a practical town due to the way it was developed as it has no core.

mire

flaneur wrote: »

Considering that none of those towns have town councils and actually none of them ever had in the first place, they're losing absolutely nothing and have a lot to gain by having an urban local authority looking after them in terms of getting treated as urban areas instead of rural towns.

Under the current regime Ballincollig has basically been developed into a massively long strip that is like a "Sraid Bhaile" on an absolutely vast scale And shows a lot of signs of total lack of urban planning. It's not even a practical town due to the way it was developed as it has no core.

I agree with your first point, but have to contradict the latter.

For a place that has grown from a Tiny Village to to a town of about 20 thousand people in a relatively short period of time ballincollig is actually a success story from A planning perspective. yes it is quite long but that is an historical rather than a contemporary feature.

The town's core is well organized and it is one of the few well planned satellite towns, much of this was down to the masterplan for the barracks site. There is however some very low density sprawl occurring. If you want an example of unplanned disorganized low density towns with no spatial coherence and terrible town centre qualities try glanmire, blarney tower, and carrigaline. These are textbook cases of how not to grow satellite towns.

Roger Hassenforder

mire wrote: »

I agree with your first point, but have to contradict the latter.

For a place that has grown from a Tiny Village to to a town of about 20 thousand people in a relatively short period of time ballincollig is actually a success story from A planning perspective. yes it is quite long but that is an historical rather than a contemporary feature.

The town's core is well organized and it is one of the few well planned satellite towns, much of this was down to the masterplan for the barracks site. There is however some very low density sprawl occurring. If you want an example of unplanned disorganized low density towns with no spatial coherence and terrible town centre qualities try glanmire, blarney tower, and carrigaline. These are textbook cases of how not to grow satellite towns.

First time we agree on something?!

Blarney/Tower is a absolute disaster of a sprawling mess. Only the northern ring road will sort it.

Problem I see though is if these become City , will the City just sprawl out to meet them, exacerbating the mess.

flaneur

They're all lacking town councils so it doesn't surprise me in the least that we ended up with poor oversight of planning.

This is why I worry a lot about the political notion that you can just create amorphous super councils that are effectively moving decision making further and further from people. That's all the merger would have achieved.

I am a firm believer in the need for town councils though. I still think the decision to abolish them a few years ago was incredibly short-sighted and out of keeping with European or almost any other part of the developed world.

We should have been rolling out more town councils and maybe looking for cost savings by reducing some of the overheads at county council level by giving towns more autonomy. Instead we centralised and centralised.

We can't really complain about sprawling messy towns without any focus when they have no civic political infrastructure.

I still think merging Limerick and Waterford with their respective counties was absolutely crazy. It's even more crazy given that neither of those cities is even entirely in those counties. You're going to end up with weird development patterns in the future in those cities now.

Reputable Rog

mire wrote: »

I agree with your first point, but have to contradict the latter.

For a place that has grown from a Tiny Village to to a town of about 20 thousand people in a relatively short period of time ballincollig is actually a success story from A planning perspective. yes it is quite long but that is an historical rather than a contemporary feature.

The town's core is well organized and it is one of the few well planned satellite towns, much of this was down to the masterplan for the barracks site. There is however some very low density sprawl occurring. If you want an example of unplanned disorganized low density towns with no spatial coherence and terrible town centre qualities try glanmire, blarney tower, and carrigaline. These are textbook cases of how not to grow satellite towns.

Ballincollig in the early noughties was heading the same way as Carrigaline, but the redevelopment of the Barracks and the associated development together with other initiatives have made it one of the best towns in Ireland.
I think it will only get better but the Southside of the Town Centre is deteriorating and a regeneration initiative needs to be put in place to replicate the northern side, which although has a lot of vacancy will fill up in time, maybe not with retail but with offices and other industries.

mire

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

First time we agree on something?!

Blarney/Tower is a absolute disaster of a sprawling mess. Only the northern ring road will sort it.

Problem I see though is if these become City , will the City just sprawl out to meet them, exacerbating the mess.

I would certainly be very complimentary of Cork County council for how they have developed Ballincollig so far. Equally I would be extremely critical of how they have allowed the other satellite towns to develop. But it is not easy to manage rapidly growing towns in the face of the incessant development pressure.

On your point about sprawl, There is no evidence to suggest that the city council would be incentivized to develop the greenbelt between the city and those towns...Though that is a straw man that was the dealt with quite ruthlessly in the Mckinnon report. There is enough zoned land in the city and suburbs and the satellite towns to cater for very significant expansion of the entire metropolitan area.There is absolutely no need to develop More of the green belt. It's worth remembering that Cork County council currently propose to rezone hundreds of hectares of that same green belt for guess what ? Low density suburban housing.

I'm glad that we agree on Ballincollig's Development and planning however.

mire

flaneur wrote: »

They're all lacking town councils so it doesn't surprise me in the least that we ended up with poor oversight of planning.

This is why I worry a lot about the political notion that you can just create amorphous super councils that are effectively moving decision making further and further from people. That's all the merger would have achieved.

I am a firm believer in the need for town councils though. I still think the decision to abolish them a few years ago was incredibly short-sighted and out of keeping with European or almost any other part of the developed world.

We should have been rolling out more town councils and maybe looking for cost savings by reducing some of the overheads at county council level by giving towns more autonomy. Instead we centralised and centralised.

We can't really complain about sprawling messy towns without any focus when they have no civic political infrastructure.

I still think merging Limerick and Waterford with their respective counties was absolutely crazy. It's even more crazy given that neither of those cities is even entirely in those counties. You're going to end up with weird development patterns in the future in those cities now.

You're absolutely correct on the issue of civic political infrastructure. It is crazy that Ireland is so centralized, And the whole amalgamations project was driven by a small number of people in the civil service who wanted less pesky local authorities to deal with. If they had their way there would be no local government.

Fortunately the merger proposal in the case of Cork was ultimately rejected. Despite the fact that the terms of reference had been written in such a way that that precise outcome would have been delivered. Imagine, The second city of the state would have been nothing more than a large municipal district with no legally prescribed municipal competencies for a kinds of things that cities should be doing.

Roger Hassenforder

mire wrote: »

On your point about sprawl, There is no evidence to suggest that the city council would be incentivized to develop the greenbelt between the city and those towns...Though that is a straw man that was the dealt with quite ruthlessly in the Mckinnon report. There is enough zoned land in the city and suburbs and the satellite towns to cater for very significant expansion of the entire metropolitan area.There is absolutely no need to develop More of the green belt.

(Interesting..."ruthlessly"...)

It's rather a circular argument there's adequate land banks both within and without their functional area, when a significant element of argument for expansion is they haven't room to swing a proverbial cat, notwithstanding large tracts of land sitting idle, or if developed, low density.
That's the only evidence we have. We can't provide evidence for sonething not yet not done, but can anticipate behaviour based on past behaviour both local and national.

their argument be reduced to thus:
"We haven't any land, have done fcuk all with what we have, but if we take all yours, we'll be grand"
A land grab by any other name.

Makes a nonsense of any aspiration to grow a population of the urban area, we'll just have an even bigger area of land, covered in housing estates, with one of the lowest population density in a European city.
Be grand.
"Come to Cork. We're like Clondalkin and Tallaght, only we speak differently"

mire wrote: »

It's worth remembering that Cork County council currently propose to rezone hundreds of hectares of that same green belt for guess what ? Low density suburban housing.

Is this Monard?

The green belt is agreed between the two Authorities on a regional authority basis, it's not within the gift of either to rezone it without agreement, or are you referring to draft LAPs within the former town councils currently at consultation?
I.e. Without the green belt?

mire

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

(Interesting..."ruthlessly"...)

It's rather a circular argument there's adequate land banks both within and without their functional area, when a significant element of argument for expansion is they haven't room to swing a proverbial cat, notwithstanding large tracts of land sitting idle, or if developed, low density.
That's the only evidence we have. We can't provide evidence for sonething not yet not done, but can anticipate behaviour based on past behaviour both local and national.

their argument be reduced to thus:
"We haven't any land, have done fcuk all with what we have, but if we take all yours, we'll be grand"
A land grab by any other name.

Makes a nonsense of any aspiration to grow a population of the urban area, we'll just have an even bigger area of land, covered in housing estates, with one of the lowest population density in a European city.
Be grand.
"Come to Cork. We're like Clondalkin and Tallaght, only we speak differently"





Is this Monard?

The green belt is agreed between the two Authorities on a regional authority basis, it's not within the gift of either to rezone it without agreement, or are you referring to draft LAPs within the former town councils currently at consultation?
I.e. Without the green belt?

The whole 'land land grab' argument is a bit silly. Local authorities do not own the land we are talking about; they administer it on behalf of citizens and businesses. The expansion of the city's administrative area is a universal component of urban development and urban politics in every European City. It's completely normal for a city To have its jurisdiction expanded; the reason it is so controversial in cork is not because it's so-large it's because it's so late; There should have probably been about two or three extensions in the last 30 to 40 years. However, there was resistance to this from Cork County council.

No I'm not talking about monard. I am referring to the the proposed strategic land reserves in the draft local area plans, Which is a significant departure from the green belt policy. By the way, Cork County council, like every other local authority and the country, reserves the right to zone its own land; It does not have to consult with Cork City council even though they are a party to a joint regional approach - CASP.

Therefore, Cork County council does not need the agreement of Cork City council.

The green belt is in fact in danger of being eroded - Not by Cork City councils expansion but by the actions of Cork County council themselves.

Water John

So, if all these areas are given over to the City Council, they'll keep the Green Belts???

j8wk2feszrnpao

mire wrote: »

The whole 'land land grab' argument is a bit silly.

It's a way of describing the 'rates grab', which is a truer reflection of their extensive 'land grab' proposal. As I said previously, Carrigtwohill wouldn't have been on their radar without the business park located there.

Roger Hassenforder

mire wrote: »

The whole 'land land grab' argument is a bit silly. Local authorities do not own the land we are talking about; they administer it on behalf of their citizens and businesses.

Which is why the County reject MacKinnon as not being in the interests of the citizens and businesses of its functional area.

mire wrote: »

I am referring to the the proposed strategic land reserves in the draft local area plans, Which is a significant departure from the green belt policy. By the way, Cork County council, like every other local authority and the country, reserves the right to zone its own land; It does not have to consult with Cork City council even though they are a party to a joint regional approach - CASP.

Therefore, Cork County council does not need the agreement of Cork City council.

The green belt is in fact in danger of being eroded - Not by Cork City councils expansion but by the actions of Cork County council themselves.

You seem to be missing out on the democratic aspect in LAP adoption. There not shoehorned through unlike other plans...

Rather than tilting at windmills, stick up a map, there are places that were agreed to be in need of review within CASP...

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

Ballincollig has turned out better than most other substantial developments in recent times. But it needs to be said that it was through a stroke of sheer good luck and fortune that it expanded to one side of a giant barracks. It was then allowed to plan half of it's core completely in one great organised swoop. This was only after the fact there was a massive, unplanned and uncontrolled urban sprawl already in place to only one side of the main road there.

It was an ideal situation for how to plan a suburb, but it was utter luck that it turned out the way it did.


RTE released a very interesting and detailed and well done wealth distribution interactive map of Ireland here.

It so very clearly demonstrates a massive hollow out of the current urban centre's wealth/affluence, and how it has been concentrated more frequently on the outskirts of the City.
Of course someone who is a wealthy City Centre business owner might plan on moving house out to one of Cork City's suburbs/green spaces and build/buy a great big house for himself/herself and the family; but that has left the City with a raw deal ultimately. It doesn't really seem fair to me anyway.

partyguinness

As a general point there are far too many local authorities in Ireland for the size and population of the country.

Even taking Cork, how much duplication with jobs/roles is going on? Look at the two huge buildings they have for themselves?

It's a bit of a cod- 'Jobs for the boys.' I have personal friends with Cork council who do agree that there is no real need for all the personal and property and jobs that can easily merged.

mire

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

mire wrote: »

The whole 'land land grab' argument is a bit silly. Local authorities do not own the land we are talking about; they administer it on behalf of their citizens and businesses.

Which is why the County reject MacKinnon as not being in the interests of the citizens and businesses of its functional area.

mire wrote: »

I am referring to the the proposed strategic land reserves in the draft local area plans, Which is a significant departure from the green belt policy. By the way, Cork County council, like every other local authority and the country, reserves the right to zone its own land; It does not have to consult with Cork City council even though they are a party to a joint regional approach - CASP.

Therefore, Cork County council does not need the agreement of Cork City council.

The green belt is in fact in danger of being eroded - Not by Cork City councils expansion but by the actions of Cork County council themselves.

You seem to be missing out on the democratic aspect in LAP adoption. There not shoehorned through unlike other plans...

Rather than tilting at windmills, stick up a map, there are places that were agreed to be in need of review within CASP...

You're shifting the goalposts pretty quick! The fact is that Cork County Council is proposing to rezone a substantial proportion of its green belt to housing, all at the edge of the built up areas. They appear to be determined to give in to the huge pressures from key landowners for rezoning in these greenfield sites.

This is in direct conflict with CASP.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

munstermagic11 wrote: »

It's a way of describing the 'rates grab', which is a truer reflection of their extensive 'land grab' proposal. As I said previously, Carrigtwohill wouldn't have been on their radar without the business park located there.

While that is obviously partly true. The City would also want an educated, expanding, affluent and very near by urban area to be incorporated into the City Area.

542,196 people live in Cork, which is very big by Irish standards, and the next after Cork have less than half that. Only Dublin have bigger obviously.

Cork City's population is only 125,622 though. The whole thing is way off balance.


Cork County Council was already a 'super council' before any talk of a 'super super council' merger. Already the biggest by area and second by population.