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

Roger Hassenforder

namloc1980 wrote: »

I know someone working out in County Hall and they got an email from management saying the Council totally disagrees with the report, that this is just the opening round in negotiations and that the final outcome will be very different. Guaranteed this will be completely diluted to appease the County. It's the way things always go

IMO this.

First report recommended County absorbing City. City having none of it.
Second report recommended significant City expansion. County having none of it.

Hopefully now that the tow of them are aware of possible outcomes neither want, it might encourage them to negotiate something they can both swallow.

BlinkingLights

City and County binding referendum would settle it.
Take the adminstrative bureaucracy internal politics out of the debate entirely.

This has to serve the people of Cork not just end up in a stupid argument between two bureaucracy.

KCAccidental

Coveney gone from Housing & Local Government.

Can see this festering for another few years.

Patrick 1959

KCAccidental wrote: »

Coveney gone from Housing & Local Government.

Can see this festering for another few years.

You could be right on that. Status quo would suite the county council nicely just like it has for the last 52 years. They seem to forget that it's the city who made Corks population great only for that Cork would be another Mayo or Kerry i.e. Big county's with a few small towns.

D'Agger

I'm not going to claim to be in the know here, having only read scant reports on what's been recommended here.

But would I be right to say that the City taking in Douglas & Ballincollig in particular would be of huge benefit to the city? Given the housing situation, improvement of services from those 'boroughs' will be important for the sustained growth of the city.

From my reading of the reports & BlinkingLights post above - the City and County councils have rejected two proposals, because they seem to see-saw in terms of what covers what instead of striking a balance that's needed.

Blitzkrieger

mire wrote: »

What's interesting is that the County Council seem to be the only voice criticising the new report.

What about the residents of the expansion themselves? Nobody I've talked to wants to deal with the rates and insurance increases that will come with a city address.

CHealy

D'Agger wrote: »

I'm not going to claim to be in the know here, having only read scant reports on what's been recommended here.

But would I be right to say that the City taking in Douglas & Ballincollig in particular would be of huge benefit to the city? Given the housing situation, improvement of services from those 'boroughs' will be important for the sustained growth of the city.

From my reading of the reports & BlinkingLights post above - the City and County councils have rejected two proposals, because they seem to see-saw in terms of what covers what instead of striking a balance that's needed.

Thats exactly what it is.

In reality the city boundary should have been extended years and years ago, there is still parts of Douglas, Togher, Wilton, Bishopstown, Ballyvolane, Grange, Donnybrook, Mayfield, along with other areas part of the continuous urban area of the city not technically part of the city. It needs to be extended to include all these areas along with immediate suburbs such as Ballincollig, Glanmire, Little Island, Blarney and around the airport. The city itself is being done out of about 40% of its actual urban population. You look now and you see the official population at 120,000, small city in any country, you put in the real figure of over 200,000 and while still small, its a different beast all together.

No way will the County ever accept the new proposal, and no way will the City Council ever accept the previous proposal of a merge (rightly so), so I think the Government will have to step in here and just say whats what. The County will get their compensation, the City will have a true urban population to work with and expand, and off we go. Realistically this will go on and on for years and will eventually be forgotten about and we'll be left with the same boundary in 2030 as the one we had in 1965.

I live in the county (and would after the city expansion) but the city needs to grow.

Ballincollig/Blarney/Douglas et al. use the city as their primary. There is no divide between City and Douglas/Ballincollig and hardly any with Blarney anymore. They are suburbs of the city and should be absorbed as such

BlinkingLights

The reality is that for the employees of city and county halls other than maybe being reassigned to a different council, their jobs won't change and might actually become more interesting as they'll be working either with a proper scale urban authority or a rural one with a real focus.

The resources won't actually change, the only thing that's preventing this is pretty empire building squabbling and that's undermining Cork in general.

Grow up and think or the greater good here !!

Patrick 1959

Blitzkrieger wrote: »

What about the residents of the expansion themselves? Nobody I've talked to wants to deal with the rates and insurance increases that will come with a city address.

How much will the rates and insurance increase by?

namloc1980

Patrick 1959 wrote: »

How much will the rates and insurance increase by?

Depends on circumstances but the rates are higher in the city than county. Plenty of businesses very nervous about joining the city council. Rates going up in an already tough business environment is the last thing they need.

BlinkingLights

Doesn't necessarily work like that though - you're expanding the rates base, so should be able to spread the costs a lot more.

As it stands it's grossly unfair that a small number of city rates payers are funding everything, while most of the property tax is flowing into the county, even though many of those people use city services, roads, amenities etc etc.

mire

namloc1980 wrote: »

Depends on circumstances but the rates are higher in the city than county. Plenty of businesses very nervous about joining the city council. Rates going up in an already tough business environment is the last thing they need.

Not true afaik, and the boundary extension will have no impact on rates. This idea that businesses are nervous about the boundary extension is news to me; hasn't appeared anywhere in the debate in the last 3 years. The commercial rate in the city is lower than the county (70.05 versus 74.75). The difference is based on the actual valuation of properties - and the differential will obviously remain - i.e. a valuation of a retail premises on Patrick street will be higher than one in Carrigtwohill. That argument is just not a real one. The only real opponents to this are Cork County Council - who have resisted any boundary reform for 52 years.

mire

BlinkingLights wrote: »

Doesn't necessarily work like that though - you're expanding the rates base, so should be able to spread the costs a lot more.

As it stands it's grossly unfair that a small number of city rates payers are funding everything, while most of the property tax is flowing into the county, even though many of those people use city services, roads, amenities etc etc.

The McKinnion report suggests that Cork city and suburbs subsidises rural Cork to about €35 million per annum....

Patrick 1959

The biggest employers in Cork are based in the city i.e. hospitals,CIE,apple,office workers,shop workers even the county council office tower block is based in Cork City. Commuters crisscross Cork City at least twice daily (no part of Cork City is more than 2.5 miles from St Patrick Street ) mostly from the county areas either adjoining the City or within 5 to 12 mile radius. Cork City ratepayers are paying for the upkeep of roads streets parks etc which these commuters use . I'm from the innercity and am used to the sight of commuters cars parked for up 9 hours a day outside there homes.There is only 1 Park And Ride in Cork City .Cork County Council haven't built any on the outskirts of the City maybe they should be paying the city council 40 million a year to help with the upkeep of the City.

namloc1980

mire wrote: »

Not true afaik, and the boundary extension will have no impact on rates. This idea that businesses are nervous about the boundary extension is news to me; hasn't appeared anywhere in the debate in the last 3 years. The commercial rate in the city is lower than the county (70.05 versus 74.75). The difference is based on the actual valuation of properties - and the differential will obviously remain - i.e. a valuation of a retail premises on Patrick street will be higher than one in Carrigtwohill. That argument is just not a real one. The only real opponents to this are Cork County Council - who have resisted any boundary reform for 52 years.

Your info is wrong or well out of date. The rate in the city is 74.98. It got hiked last year because of serious holes in the city budget. Hasn't been 70.05 in a long while.

Roger Hassenforder

Patrick 1959 wrote: »

The biggest employers in Cork are based in the city i.e. hospitals,CIE,apple,office workers,shop workers even the county council office tower block is based in Cork City. Commuters crisscross Cork City at least twice daily (no part of Cork City is more than 2.5 miles from St Patrick Street ) mostly from the county areas either adjoining the City or within 5 to 12 mile radius. Cork City ratepayers are paying for the upkeep of roads streets parks etc which these commuters use . I'm from the innercity and am used to the sight of commuters cars parked for up 9 hours a day outside there homes.There is only 1 Park And Ride in Cork City .Cork County Council haven't built any on the outskirts of the City maybe they should be paying the city council 40 million a year to help with the upkeep of the City.

a bit of a circular argument - the biggest employers in Cork City are the ones in eh in Cork City!

You're forgetting the number of people employed in Little Island, EMC, Ringaskiddy, Eli etc. With the exception of the colleges, the hospitals and Apple, most of the employment around the City could be arguably "low skill" work (and no disrespect to anyone working in a shop, I did it long enough). there is an argument these areas of Cork County bring more revenue to Cork, not to mind tourism attractions located in the County, serviced by hotels in the City. City than does Cork City itself. Cork County is one of the wealthiest local authorities.

there's a massive dockland area of Cork undeveloped. Why? inertia?
They're cribbing they've no place to expand. There's places within the City with plenty of development opportunity. City Council staf balloted for industrial action because their car park at Navigation house is being sold from under their ars3s. The Kinsale Rd. landfill amenity is an other example of their inertia and lack of forward thinking. Anyone doing business with both City and County Councils will report very different experiences.

It still makes no sense to have certain areas of the County not in the City, (Douglas etc.) they should be handed over. But to bring in the ones outside the green belt (Blarney, Carrigtohill and Ballincollig etc.) would result in one big sprawl like Dublin, which no one wants. An abject failure of sustainable planning.
I live in the city and would love if they do it differently in Cork, Higher density, better amenities and infrastructure. A Manhattan island boi!

Balmed Out

Patrick 1959 wrote: »

The biggest employers in Cork are based in the city i.e. hospitals,CIE,apple,office workers,shop workers even the county council office tower block is based in Cork City. Commuters crisscross Cork City at least twice daily (no part of Cork City is more than 2.5 miles from St Patrick Street ) mostly from the county areas either adjoining the City or within 5 to 12 mile radius. Cork City ratepayers are paying for the upkeep of roads streets parks etc which these commuters use . I'm from the innercity and am used to the sight of commuters cars parked for up 9 hours a day outside there homes.There is only 1 Park And Ride in Cork City .Cork County Council haven't built any on the outskirts of the City maybe they should be paying the city council 40 million a year to help with the upkeep of the City.

Ok I walked from various points on the mahon peninsula to Patricks street and even as the crow flies I refuse to believe this.

Patrick 1959

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

a bit of a circular argument - the biggest employers in Cork City are the ones in eh in Cork City!

You're forgetting the number of people employed in Little Island, EMC, Ringaskiddy, Eli etc. With the exception of the colleges, the hospitals and Apple, most of the employment around the City could be arguably "low skill" work (and no disrespect to anyone working in a shop, I did it long enough). there is an argument these areas of Cork County bring more revenue to Cork, not to mind tourism attractions located in the County, serviced by hotels in the City. City than does Cork City itself. Cork County is one of the wealthiest local authorities.

there's a massive dockland area of Cork undeveloped. Why? inertia?
They're cribbing they've no place to expand. There's places within the City with plenty of development opportunity. City Council staf balloted for industrial action because their car park at Navigation house is being sold from under their ars3s. The Kinsale Rd. landfill amenity is an other example of their inertia and lack of forward thinking. Anyone doing business with both City and County Councils will report very different experiences.

It still makes no sense to have certain areas of the County not in the City, (Douglas etc.) they should be handed over. But to bring in the ones outside the green belt (Blarney, Carrigtohill and Ballincollig etc.) would result in one big sprawl like Dublin, which no one wants. An abject failure of sustainable planning.
I live in the city and would love if they do it differently in Cork, Higher density, better amenities and infrastructure. A Manhattan island boi!

Bankers,insurance brokers,stockbrokers,engineering consulting,1Albert Quay. People working in shops are also eye options,jewellers, and not just till workers. How many of the above work in the factory lines or as G.O in little island or Ringaskiddy . Yes there are professionals working there also but in far fewer numbers then the city.you say the City has plenty of places to expand where ? It's bursting out into the County.thats why we need an extension.The Docklands area is not undeveloped but being redeveloped a lot of it is Brown Field contamainated with chemicals, were also waiting for the Goverment to give the go ahead for the East Gate Bridge for major work to begin( 10,000 people exiting onto Albert Road from there new apartments = mayhem ) you mentioned kinsale Road what do you think you can build on a Dump? (Notting there must be 60 foot of rubbish buried there and enough metanegas to take half the city if it blew ) Don't know were your going with council workers voting for strike.Plain and simple Cork City with its 2.5 mile city radius needs a substantial boundary extension .

Patrick 1959

Balmed Out wrote: »

Ok I walked from various points on the mahon peninsula to Patricks street and even as the crow flies I refuse to believe this.

Ok how miles is it ? City Center to Blackpool 25 minutes walk City Center to Ballaphane 25 minutes I've walked Mahon to City Center and to Greemount many times it 45 minutes. Don't refuse to believe just check it out and if iam out by a half mile on that route sorry . What about the rest of what I've written do you agree or are you just nitpicking?

Roger Hassenforder

Patrick 1959 wrote: »

Bankers,insurance brokers,stockbrokers,engineering consulting,1Albert Quay. People working in shops are also eye options,jewellers, and not just till workers. How many of the above work in the factory lines or as G.O in little island or Ringaskiddy . Yes there are professionals working there also but in far fewer numbers then the city.you say the City has plenty of places to expand where ? It's bursting out into the County.thats why we need an extension.The Docklands area is not undeveloped but being redeveloped a lot of it is Brown Field contamainated with chemicals, were also waiting for the Goverment to give the go ahead for the East Gate Bridge for major work to begin( 10,000 people exiting onto Albert Road from there new apartments = mayhem ) you mentioned kinsale Road what do you think you can build on a Dump? (Notting there must be 60 foot of rubbish buried there and enough metanegas to take half the city if it blew ) Don't know were your going with council workers voting for strike.Plain and simple Cork City with its 2.5 mile city radius needs a substantial boundary extension .

They voted for industrial action last week over the car parking.
Ballincollig Midleton carrigtohill Douglas etc all has these professionals as well

Roger Hassenforder

mire wrote: »

The McKinnion report suggests that Cork city and suburbs subsidises rural Cork to about €35 million per annum....

Is it not the areas of cork county proposed to be handed over subsidise other parts of the county?

Water John

The city should be allowed expand and take in all areas in the city. The wider reach is a negotiating position and won't happen.
Whatever about Ballincollig, Blarney and I doubt it, but the reach to Little Island and Carrigtowill will not happen.

Patrick 1959

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

They voted for industrial action last week over the car parking.
Ballincollig Midleton carrigtohill Douglas etc all has these professionals as well

Look Ballydehob might have Dentist so what all these areas you mention might have these professionals but they are most likely commuting into the City, I would not think that there is a large amount of professional people commuting from the City to Carrigtohill or Middleton.anyway I was talking about the volume of people working in Cork City been greater then those working on the county side of the Boundary,and the high amount of people commuting into Cork City. I can't understand what voting for industrial action has to do anything I've said.

Patrick 1959

Water John wrote: »

The city should be allowed expand and take in all areas in the city. The wider reach is a negotiating position and won't happen.
Whatever about Ballincollig, Blarney and I doubt it, but the reach to Little Island and Carrigtowill will not happen.

There is no point in the city taking over the urban overspill alone, as this will just create more urban overspill. The city has to plan for the next 50 years or so with a prodicted population of 350,000 . It needs space for this .

Water John

Might be appropriate to start looking vertically.

Roger Hassenforder

Patrick 1959 wrote: »

Look Ballydehob might have Dentist so what all these areas you mention might have these professionals but they are most likely commuting into the City, I would not think that there is a large amount of professional people commuting from the City to Carrigtohill or Middleton.anyway I was talking about the volume of people working in Cork City been greater then those working on the county side of the Boundary,and the high amount of people commuting into Cork City. I can't understand what voting for industrial action has to do anything I've said.

Part of a wider point about city council cribbing about having no space to expand but letting the dock lands rot, including their own car park.

Unless we've figures to back up our respective positions about commuters and money moving across boundaries were both talking out our hoop!

Patrick 1959

Water John wrote: »

Might be appropriate to start looking vertically.

If you mean building hirise I say no we're not living in a metropolis, look 20 minute walk Patrick street to city boundary in Blackpool,20 mile road to Mallow Notting but green fields. Urban sprawl comparing Cork with Dublin , Dublin is 10 times bigger than Cork City ,6 times bigger if you include our city's urban overspill. It will probably take a100years for Cork City population to reach were Dublin's is now. Think of this if Cork County Council get there way in 100 years there might be 800,000 people on the County side of the City boundary .

Patrick 1959

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

Part of a wider point about city council cribbing about having no space to expand but letting the dock lands rot, including their own car park.

Unless we've figures to back up our respective positions about commuters and money moving across boundaries were both talking out our hoop!

Look It's not up to City Council to build in the dock lands,its up to Private investors to do that ,All the Council can do is make it attractive for them to build there .the Council have applied to the government for money/permission to build the east gate bridge until the go ahead for the Bridge is started or at the very least past no major work on hirise apartments or offices blocks will go ahead, the area is a cull de sac for major development. On the number of people working in the city I've got some figures for 2011 which you can recall was a bad year for imployment there was eleven employers with over 1000 employees each . Population 119,000 in 2011 the unemployment rate was 14%.

Roger Hassenforder

Patrick 1959 wrote: »

Look It's not up to City Council to build in the dock lands,its up to Private investors to do that ,All the Council can do is make it attractive for them to build there .the Council have applied to the government for money/permission to build the east gate bridge until the go ahead for the Bridge is started or at the very least past no major work on hirise apartments or offices blocks will go ahead, the area is a cull de sac for major development. On the number of people working in the city I've got some figures for 2011 which you can recall was a bad year for imployment there was eleven employers with over 1000 employees each . Population 119,000 in 2011 the unemployment rate was 14%.

Over 10,000 work in little island/day
An island
Can't get more Cul de sac than that