The Kiama Council is thinking about future generations according to Mayor Neil Reilly on Kiama

Community Radio (KCR) recently.

“We have to have a generational mindset. You can slap up some cheap houses which will fall down

in two year’s time but that’s no good,” Mayor Reilly said.

Kiama Mayor Neil Reilly talks housing and finances on Kiama Community Radio

“We have to start thinking about housing for future generations. We have the Akuna Street

development, which will take some of the pressure off housing,” he said on the Breakfast Show on

Tuesday, 21 May.

“Council also has areas of landholding where with the simple stroke of a state government pen, we

could build in Spring Creek.”

Mayor Reilly flagged the Bombo Quarry area had the capacity for 3000 houses.

“Anything we do in that area is going to be a vast improvement. I have a mayoral minute which will

seek from the land owners, Boral and Transport NSW, to plot the future with us.”

Last year the Council wrote to the NSW Planning Minister and requested an update on the Bombo

Quarry site to be used for development as part of the Illawarra Shoalhaven Regional Plan 2041.

The NSW Department of Planning replied that, “any future housing or employment is unlikely to

occur in the short to medium term.”

As The Bugle reported at the time, “with residential development at the site years away – and

Business Illawarra’s recent Affordable Housing Solutions report showing 20,000 key workers are

experiencing housing stress right now – calls for short-term fixes to Kiama’s housing crisis are likely

to grow louder.”

Mayor Reilly told listeners the Council was not anti-development.

“I would rather be building up in the centre than out at the edges. I don’t want to lose those green

rolling hills for future generations.”

“Mexican jumping beans” – former council finances

Restricted accounts with a life of their own

Mayor Reilly explained the complexity and danger the council faced more than two years ago when

invalid accounts disguised dangerously low liquidity.

“In the past, we had a set of financial figures which on the surface, looked okay, such as our internal

and external restricted reserves.”

“Those reserves were moving around like Mexican jumping beans and were being used to pay for

this and that.

“In the end, we came up with an operations budget, which was so low on cash we only had $200k to

pay for power and wages … that was frightening.

“The CEO and myself spoke to TCorp, as at the time we owed them $60M (now $15M). We said

something has gone very wrong. Money had been used for the construction of Blue Haven Bonaira.”

“Now we have to use some extraordinary methods to get (council finances) going again.

“Blue Haven consolidated costs us about $3M a year - about $11K a day.

“We were lucky we had some land to sell for a rainy day and it has been raining not only from the

sky but from our finances.

“That’s why we are doing service reviews on the leisure centre, the waste business, holiday parks

and more. We will make them much more efficient and more valuable to the community. They will

take the pressure off the community and generate monies for council.”