It seems that all the town can talk about is growth, housing and (over?)development.

News over the past week of multiple high(er)-rise proposals in Akuna Street and a Council-led initiative at the Kiama Depot in Shoalhaven Street has sparked a veritable frenzy of conversations in town and across social media.

In the last term of Council, it would have been unfathomable to hear our elected officials (whether at the state or local level) spruiking an eight-storey development just outside of the town centre. How times have changed.

We at The Bugle genuinely admire the leadership of Mayor Cameron McDonald.

It’s been a year of challenges and redressing inherited issues from the former Council, culminating in the very controversial Local Housing Strategy earlier this year and another round of consultation for the Employment Lands Strategy to close out 2025.

It’s well and good to finalise strategy after strategy knowing all too well that the process of development approval and construction could take years, or in the case of Bombo Quarry, decades to come to fruition.

It's a completely different equation to spend money purchasing a strategic landholding, particularly when finances are tight, then identify that landholding for future development, and then partner with the State Government to deliver a fast-tracked rezoning outcome.

And with a 30m or eight-storey height limit (the highest in the local government area) to boot!

When the enlarged Kiama Depot site is eventually sold to a developer to deliver 450 dwellings (including 10% affordable housing) it will likely be a bonanza for Council’s coffers.

The cynics among us might look at the fizzer of the Glenbrook Drive land auctions, or the current travesty that is unfolding at the Akuna Street carpark site as poor or mismanaged outcomes.

But it’s not often that something of this size comes to the market, at a scale that is three times the Akuna Street carpark development.

Kiama MP Katelin McInerney took it upon herself to spruik the merits of the proposal by posting to a local Kiama Facebook group.

Cue outbursts, outcry and outrage.

This is certainly what we expected and to an extent, what we got from the community. And rightly so! In the context of developments along Akuna Street, CEO Jane Stroud told The Bugle “the look and feel of Akuna Street … is going to profoundly change”.

Surely, she would have to say the same for Shoalhaven Street, too.

But after the weekend and some time for the news to make its way from door to door, Council would be chuffed at some of the commentary that is emanating from the community and its views on development.

Comments noting the need to encourage the creation of local jobs (particularly for our youth), finding carers for our ageing population, and places for those aged care workers to live, are threads of progressive thinking that within our community.

It’s certainly not the absolute majority, but we’d hazard a guess that it might be closer to 50-50 issue than most think.

Ultimately, proof will be in the pudding, or the planning process as it were.

McInerney has also foreshadowed that the future development application to allow for construction to begin will likely be a State Significant Development, again, effectively sidelining Council from determining the outcome.

Ultimately, this approach allows Council an effective “it’s not us” defence.

In fact, the only way to stop development from occurring is for Council to completely abandon a future sale of the site, which is clearly not happening.

While there are some significant development proposals that have been out of Council’s control, the depot is truly by their own design and profound change is indeed coming to town.

The Bugle’s View this needs to be a profoundly positive change.