Council will seek lease deal debate

KIAMA Council will ask the NSW Government not to enter into a lease for Killalea State Park until a proposed development has been publicly debated.

On Good Friday, April 6, the State Government published a notice in a Wollongong newspaper advising that it intended to grant a 52-year lease of part of the park to Killalea Coastal Investments Pty Ltd.

The notice said the purpose of the lease was to develop a tourist resort in the park.

In January last year, the council was told of a proposed amendment to the Killalea State Park Plan to allow tourist facilities to be built.

Kiama Council supported this amendment with the provision that the area to the south-east of the Minnamurra Beach car park was included in area of greatest sensitivity on the plan.

During debate at the April meeting, councillors argued that it was important for the plans for the park be made public because the strict confidentiality agreements council representatives to the Killalea trust must enter into meant there had been no prior discussion on the matter.

Nerissa Bradley, a former representative on the trust, said she had always found it "extremely frustrating" not to be able to report to the council on anything that might affect the Kiama municipality.

"Without putting the concept plan out to the community to show what is envisaged, the community has to rely on hearsay and rumour," she said.

A spokesman for Lands Minister Tony Kelly said the signing of the development lease was conditional on the development application being approved.

"Any development on the park must conform to the plan of management and to local, regional and state planning controls," he said.

"If the DA is not approved the development lease cannot be signed."

The spokesman said the department was planning "extensive public consultation" as part of the DA process and that Kiama Council was aware of this.

The council"s decision to call for the delay of the lease and for the Minister to brief the staff and councillors of Kiama and Shellharbour councils was made unanimously with the exception of Mayor Sandra McCarthy, who abstained from the vote because she is the council"s representative on the park trust.