At last Tuesday night’s meeting, the council endorsed the Draft Shellharbour Local Environmental Plan (LEP) 2011 for the purpose of seeking approval from the Department to place the draft on public exhibition for two months.

Council deferred the section of the draft plan relating to Killalea, due to differences between council and the department about the nature of future development in the park. Until the matter was resolved, Killalea will be subject to the city’s current plan, LEP 2000.

Council’s administrator David Jesson said the draft LEP is the most significant item to come to council in some time.

“We faced a dilemma in that if the draft was not adopted because of the current impasse over Killalea, the rest of the plan would also have been held up and this would not have been in the interest of the broader community,” he said.

“While this does not resolve the issue and leaves Killalea as ‘unfinished business’, it will at least allow the remainder of the draft LEP to go on exhibition while we continue to discuss future land use planning at Killalea with the State Government.”

The draft LEP had originally proposed to limit the area of Killalea State Park where certain uses - such as a caravan park and moveable dwelling sites - could be located.

The Council has called for more information before that section of the plan can proceed.