It has been 15 years since Kiama Council adopted its Local Environmental Plan and Deputy Mayor Melissa Matters says it’s high time it had a thorough overhaul.

Cr Matters successfully moved a motion at last week’s Council meeting to systematically review the LEP from 2011 and Kiama’s Development Control Plan (DCP) from 2020 with a view to removing any inconsistencies and to facilitate good outcomes for our community.

Whether the LEP is reviewed or replaced altogether with an updated version remains to be seen and will depend on Council finances in the near future.

“That will come down to where Council can find money from because money is extremely tight,” Cr Matters told The Bugle, expressing her own views on the subject.

“But at least we've brought it to the fore because with all the other strategies in place - the employment lands, the housing strategy, the vegetation study and rural lands - unless they all overlap and intertwine, things will still be outdated.”

She added that Councillors had been put in a situation where they had to vote against several submissions because “the LEP being outdated, left us with no choice at times”.

“We're short on housing so we can’t be restricting people on their own property if they comply with the new housing strategy or the urban strategy but it doesn't fit the box because of the outdated LEP - that doesn't make sense.

“They all have to be aligned for us to move forward.”

Cr Matters said there had been a 15-year period where there has been a lack of progress in the amount of housing in the LGA and Council is now under significant pressure from the NSW Government to accelerate supply.

“Council is now in a position, and so is the government, about rushing housing through when there's been 15 years of basically nothing in our area,” she said.

“What worries me is when you do it in a hurry, it becomes a little bit of hodgepodge here and there, whereas I don't want our community to become like that.

“I want all strategies to overlay and be aligned. If we don't have a guideline and a criteria for what we meet, there will be no control on how we expand and how we still keep our rolling green hills.”

Kiama Mayor Cameron McDonald said CEO Jane Stroud and Council’s planning department will investigate what can be done to overhaul the LEP.

“We've had the housing strategy, we're doing the employment land strategy, we're hoping to be looking at a rural land strategy later in the year - these are all putting blueprints around our LGA for future development, and not just now for the next 20 or 30 years.

“Rather than piecemeal adjustments, we've acknowledged as a group that we need to do a significant review of the LEP.

“With all these things, they come with the cost. As a community, we've got to update that document and it will involve significant community consultation to ensure that it is how we want to develop as a community for the next 20 or 30 years.”