Section 7.11 Archives - Clover Hill Diaries

When $12 Million Becomes $2 Million, Trust Becomes Zero

This post is the part of a Follow the Money series shining a light on Kiama Council’s ongoing failure to even interpret its own spreadsheets.

I am not an accountant. I am a community member, like the majority of our residents, reading the same public reports and trying to understand where our money goes. We should not need a crystal ball to interpret basic financial information. We deserve numbers that make sense.

But this isn’t just about numbers. It goes to the heart of governance. Councillors cannot make sound decisions without timely, accurate and complete information.

And it raises a bigger question: are governance bodies such as the Audit, Risk and Improvement Committee (ARIC), the Auditor-General, and the Office of Local Government (OLG) fully informed of these matters – particularly in the context of the Performance Improvement Order (PIO)?

🙋‍♀️If they are, why haven’t they intervened?

🤔If they aren’t, then Council’s failures go deeper than poor spreadsheets.

The Legal Fees Debacle

On 19 August 2025, Council tabled its agenda papers showing the following “quarterly update of current legal matters”:

June 2024 – $4.50m
September 2024 – $5.01m
December 2024 – $1.32m
March 2025 – $1.20m

Those four quarters alone add up to $12.04 million. That is the figure residents saw in Council’s own agenda papers.

Even when Council later admitted the reporting was wrong , claiming the total legal spend for 2024–25 was just $2.275 million and that earlier figures were “cumulative since 2020”, the explanation did not stack up.

If the figures were cumulative, they would only ever go up. Instead, they go up and then down again, which looks exactly like quarterly spending, not a rolling total.

But that is not what the agenda papers said, and not what any reasonable community member would have understood.

🙋‍♂️Why wasn’t this identified earlier?

🙋‍♀️Why wasn’t it raised at the council meeting itself?

🤔Why wasn’t it fixed then and there?

We all look forward to these matters being clarified in the next agenda. But in the meantime, councillors, oversight bodies and the community are left making decisions based on faulty information. This is the very opposite of transparency and accountability.

Without corrected figures, councillors, oversight bodies and the community are left making decisions based on faulty information – the very opposite of transparency and accountability.

The Overcharging Fiasco

Lets not forget December 2024.

Council admitted that, between July 2022 and June 2023, around 20 development applications by developers were overcharged a total of $1.5 million under Section 7.11 because of a spreadsheet error.

Refunds totalling $625,000 were proposed.
Landowners were to be contacted, consents modified, or payments refunded.
The overcharges were only identified as part of a later review of Council’s processes.

This is not a minor slip. It is hundreds of thousands of dollars wrongly charged, only corrected after the fact.

The Pattern We Cannot Ignore

Whether it is legal fees or development contributions, the story is the same:

Shifting numbers.
Confusing explanations, offered only after the community starts asking questions.
Major financial consequences for residents and ratepayers.

Transparency is not about cleaning up after the fact. It is about consistent, honest communication in the first place.

Until Council learns how to read and report its own spreadsheets, the community will keep paying the price. And until oversight bodies such as ARIC, the Auditor-General and OLG demand accuracy and accountability, residents will be left wondering: who is really watching over Council, and when will they step in?

#KiamaCouncil #Accountability #Transparency #LegalCosts #PublicMoney #GoodGovernance #Audit #CommunityTrust #Oversight

Are we being gaslit by our own Council?

Moving On Without Looking Back Isn’t Leadership. It’s Evasion.

There’s a growing call within Kiama Council to “move forward” on developer contributions, to focus on new frameworks, technical capabilities, and future improvements. That instinct is understandable. For newly elected councillors, the pressure to defend decisions they didn’t make must be exhausting. No one expects them to carry that weight alone.

But the issue here isn’t the future. It’s the refusal to face the past.

The latest Council report into Section 7.11 and 7.12 developer contributions presents itself as a review. It’s not. It’s an administrative summary, a carefully curated narrative that avoids the most troubling questions.

It does not explain why Council allowed legally required contribution plans to lapse without replacement.
It does not acknowledge the nearly $1 million in lost infrastructure funding from developments like Golden Valley. See previous blog post: How Kiama lost $970,000 in developer contributions and no one explained why
It does not explain why staff continued applying 7.11 levies after the plans had expired, resulting in $1.5 million in overcharges.
And it certainly does not address why this information was omitted from the CEO’s public statements earlier this year.

Instead, we are told that everything is under control. That staff have the skills to prepare new plans. That forward planning is happening “across all departments.”

But if no one inside Council can admit what went wrong, how can we trust that the same systems and staff will get it right this time?

While the report confirms the repeal of the 7.11 plans and notes that overcharges have been refunded, it still fails to address the most critical issues:

Why the required five-year review process was ignored
Why Council allowed the plans to lapse without any replacement
Why the Golden Valley development, with its $1 million 7.11 condition, is excluded entirely from the analysis
Why the CEO’s earlier response omitted this development
What steps are being taken to prevent this kind of governance failure from happening again
Why the review ignored key issues raised by councillors and the community, including those I raised in good faith
It also fails to acknowledge the damage caused when a CEO publicly undermines the credibility of an elected councillor, then commissions a review that examines only what suits the executive agenda. This was not a full or independent review. It was a tightly controlled exercise in reputation management, not truth-telling.

The people responsible for these failures should not be allowed to rewrite history with a few carefully worded lines in a report.

If Council is serious about moving forward with the community, it must first confront what went wrong, tell the truth, and start rebuilding trust from there.

BTW If you’ve ever read a council report and found yourself more confused than when you started, don’t worry, it’s not you. It’s working as intended.

#KiamaCouncil #AccountabilityMatters #DeveloperContributions #GoldenValley #PlanningFail #Governance #LocalGovernment #TransparencyNow #CommunityDeservesBetter #InfrastructureFunding

Housing Strategies and Hollow Promises and Why Listening Isn’t Enough

It’s time to stop drafting strategies that sit on shelves. Let’s start building the courage to act.

If you’ve ever read a local government housing strategy, chances are it felt familiar, even if you were reading it for the first time. They tend to follow a pattern:
✔️ They acknowledge the issues.
✔️ They summarise the feedback.
✔️ They speak the language of care, equity, and inclusion.
But scratch the surface, and you’re often left asking: Where’s the action?

The latest Kiama Municipal Council Draft Housing Strategy in our region is no exception. To its credit, it captures what matters to people: housing that’s affordable, developments that respect the character of our towns, and planning that keeps pace with infrastructure. It admits where voices were missing, renters, younger people, Aboriginal residents, and it publishes community feedback clearly and transparently. That’s important.

But recognition is not reform. We don’t need another document that nods along with community concerns, only to drift into safe territory, generalities, delays, and vague promises of “sensitive growth” and “further consideration.” We need something braver.

Our housing problems aren’t unique, with communities across the country grappling with rising prices, stagnant wages, rental insecurity, and generational lockout.

And in many places, solutions are already being tried. Community land trusts. Build-to-rent models. Tiny home villages. Prefabricated homes built by social enterprise. Councils developing and retaining their own affordable housing stock. There are people doing incredible work, often outside the traditional planning system, because they’ve had no choice but to act.

So why isn’t that reflected in our local strategy?

There’s no commitment to identifying what’s working elsewhere. No plan to pilot innovation. No acknowledgement of the community-led efforts already happening here. And no tools, no inclusionary zoning, no local affordability targets, no plan for securing housing for workers or renters or older people wanting to downsize and stay close to family.

Instead, we get the usual safety net of “alignment with state frameworks” and “monitoring future needs.” It’s the language of delay.

Listening should be the starting point – not the end.

This is about ambition – not just process.

A genuinely community-driven strategy would do more than summarise feedback. It would:

Name and support local innovators already making change.
Seek out bold ideas from elsewhere and ask: could this work here?
Test small-scale pilots and learn from them.
Move beyond consultation and into co-creation, especially with those most affected by housing stress.

Transparent processes and pretty reports are not enough. People need homes, and they need leaders ready to do more than listen.

It’s time to stop drafting strategies that sit on shelves. Let’s start building the courage to act.

#HousingStrategy #AffordableHousing #CommunityLedPlanning #InclusiveGrowth #LocalVoices #BuildBetter #PlanningForPeople #HousingJustice #PolicyToAction

Local democracy shouldn’t feel like defiance

Why did it have to come to this

That’s the question I keep circling back to.

Why was it necessary to write a blog post in the first place?

Why did councillors feel they couldn’t speak freely?

Why was silence the safest option for so many, when the real damage was being done out in the open?

If local democracy was working as it should, none of this would’ve been needed. There would have been transparency from the beginning. There would have been open dialogue between council and community. And there would have been clear lines between power and accountability—not blurred ones.

But the moment I stepped into a role that involved naming what I saw and asking questions about how power operates, it became clear what kind of culture I was stepping into.

I’m not brave. I’m persistent.

And I’m someone who understands the value of truth, even when it’s inconvenient.

Anyone stepping into a civic reporting role, especially in a small town, should expect to be met with pushback. But what they shouldn’t expect is silence from those with the power to make things better.

I wrote because I believe in democratic process.

Because I believe a community has a right to know how decisions are made, who is making them, and whether the process is fair.

This shouldn’t require courage. It should be normal.

It should be part of how our systems work.

Instead, we have a system where saying something out loud feels like an act of defiance.

I spoke up because I care too much to pretend nothing is wrong.

And here’s the thing: if someone is willing to put in the hours, do the reading, follow the trail of decisions and connect the dots – why would anyone think they’re going to give up now?

#Kiama #RegionalMedia #CivicVoice #CommunityAdvocacy #LocalDemocracy #IndependentJournalism #GrassrootsLeadership #DoDemocracyDifferently

When power pushes back, who speaks for the public?

More than 20 percent of Kiama’s adult population now reads this blog. That tells me one thing loud and clear, people want to know what’s going on. They want facts, context, and the confidence to ask questions that matter.

Which brings me to what’s happening now.

On 28 May, I wrote to Kiama Council to raise a formal complaint about a public statement titled “Bugle article correction” that remains live on their website. That statement discredits a piece of reporting I wrote about developer contributions, reporting that was based entirely on public documents, and which no one has ever asked me to correct.

I’m speaking as someone who has spent over a year digging into Council reports, explaining how local decisions are made, and making civic processes easier to understand.

Council told me I’d receive a response to my complaint within ten days. It’s approaching three weeks. Nothing.

What makes this harder to ignore is that the article Council tried to discredit contained facts that the Mayor found concerning enough to launch an internal investigation. The Deputy Mayor also backed the call. In fact, both the Mayor and Deputy Mayor formally asked for the correction notice to be taken down. It’s still there.

Which raises a question, not just for the public, but for every councillor.

How does it feel to be elected to represent your community, and then discover you have no power to correct a public statement you believe is misleading?

How does it feel to know your request can be ignored, even when it’s clear the original article was accurate?

Since then, Council has added its Media Policy (April 2025) as a reference under the statement. If that’s meant to justify keeping it online, it misses the point. I’m not a Council official. I’m not bound by internal media rules. And if the policy really does promote “accuracy and professionalism,” Council should be asking itself why it’s still hosting content that undermines both.

This is not just about process. This is about power. Someone is using their position to silence voices that challenge them, and they are sending a strong message to others, including councillors, that getting in the way will have consequences. That is not leadership. It is bullying.

The best way to shut that down is not to wait for external bodies to act. It is for councillors to step up. The community is watching. So are others in the media.

If this can’t be resolved properly within Council, I’ll take it further, through the union, through formal complaints, through national media. But we all know that everyone’s time is better spent improving transparency, not justifying the unjustifiable on ABC radio.

I have a voice. Let’s make sure the community has one too.

#Kiama #KiamaCouncil #LocalGovernment #PressFreedom #CivicEngagement #TheBugle #RegionalMedia #PublicInterestJournalism

You had one job… and a pen. Council’s undated contract saga

At the 20 May 2025 Kiama Municipal Council meeting, something curious happened. Councillor Imogen Draisma tabled a construction agreement signed by both Kiama Council and the Gerringong Surf Life Saving Club, a document that forms the basis of the surf club’s brand-new building.

The catch? It wasn’t dated.

So, in a very public moment, Councillor Draisma did what any responsible representative would: she asked if this was good governance.

The CEO’s answer? A flat “No.”

You’d think that would be the end of it. But in true Kiama Council fashion, that was only the beginning of the theatre.

Watch the drama play out here beginning at 33.52 m

In a follow-up question, Draisma asked why council staff and surf club members had signed an undated legal document.

The CEO responded with an air of formality: she didn’t know.

She then explained that Council usually keeps a record in the CEO’s office showing when documents are submitted and signed, and that “it is usual practice to date and document all signatures.”

Lovely. Except she didn’t say whether that process was followed. No dates. No names. No real answers. In other words, a masterclass in sounding accountable without actually being accountable.

This is not an isolated slip. It’s part of a broader pattern, where the optics of order are used to distract from a lack of follow-through.

Remember: this is a contract tied to a building that already exists. It has been physically constructed. Ratepayers are using it. And yet somehow, no one in the building remembered to write the date on the contract that allowed it to be built.

This, of course, is the same meeting where another question about developer contributions (from another councillor) prompted a response so conveniently selective, it skipped over the very document that first required a $1 million payment from developers. That small omission later turned out to be worth over $970,000 to the community.

If we sound sceptical, it’s because the pattern is hard to ignore.

Time and again, Council appears more invested in managing appearances than managing records. And while councillors squabble, raise eyebrows or ask fair questions, the CEO continues to maintain that everything is under control, except for the parts she can’t quite explain.

The community deserves better than this passive-aggressive pantomime. We’re not asking for Shakespeare. But we do think someone should write down the date.

One week later Cr Draisma found herself in the hot seat

“One week she tables a contract that exposes a governance gap. The next week, someone’s asking if she should be investigated. That’s not accountability. That’s theatre, and the script is older than local government itself.”

It sends a message, whether intended or not: “I have powerful friends. Tread carefully.”

Coming soon: a breakdown of how public access and proper motions can still be used to push for transparency, assuming someone in the room is still paying attention.

Disclaimer: This post reflects publicly available information and personal commentary on governance and community perception. It is not intended to suggest wrongdoing or impugn the integrity of any individual. All views expressed are my own and not those of any organisation.

#KiamaCouncil #LocalGovernment #TransparencyMatters #GovernanceWatch #CommunityAccountability #PublicInterest #Section711 #PlanningReform

We don’t need a hero. We need collaborative leadership.

Most of my recent writing has focused on the Kiama Council Section 7.11 development contributions issue “How Kiama lost $970,000 in developer contributions and no one explained why”

Today I’m stepping slightly to the side, not away, to show how that issue fits into a broader pattern. Because what’s happening with Section 7.11 is not an isolated event. It is a symptom of a deeper cultural problem in how Kiama Council handles complexity, conflict and community trust.

These moments of tension, whether it is development contributions or surf club leases, often follow the same script. And the script is familiar to anyone who has studied leadership dynamics or conflict psychology.

The Gerringong Surf Life Saving Club issue in the Kiama local government area has become a textbook example of the Karpman Drama Triangle. A well-intentioned community concern has been turned into a stage production. The roles are locked in. The hero has claimed their spotlight. The victim is entrenched. And the villains? They shift by the day.

The moment someone questions the process or raises a legitimate concern, they are quickly cast in that villain role. Not because they are wrong, but because they interrupt the script. We have seen this dynamic before. And we will keep seeing it if we do not name it for what it is.

This is not about surf clubs. This is about how we lead.

At the last Kiama Council meeting, Councillor Imogen Draisma supported Motion 20.1 relating to the Gerringong Surf Life Saving Club. It was an emotionally charged moment, and like many, she likely acted with good intent.

But the motion itself was deeply complex. It involved land classification, leasing laws, native title implications and long-term planning risks, issues that most people in the Kiama local government area have not been given the time or information to fully understand.

Now, that decision has resulted in her integrity being questioned in state parliament.

This is exactly what happens when we let the Drama Triangle run the show. Someone is cast as the hero. Someone becomes the victim. And someone else gets labelled the villain, often unfairly.

It stops being about good governance. It becomes performance.

And good people become collateral damage.

More and more, the front and centre issues in the Kiama local government area are being played out through this lens, public theatre that pulls us into binary roles and distracts us from the real work of governance. The Section 7.11 development contributions issue is another clear example. Rather than work through complexity, we are fed simplified narratives that cast people as saviours or saboteurs.

It is too easy to get caught in it. The Drama Triangle has a gravity of its own. One person steps in to save the day. Another is painted as the problem. The community becomes the audience, applauding the performance but not always understanding what is at stake backstage.

But it does not have to be this way.

What if we stepped outside the triangle?
What if we paused before playing out the roles handed to us?
What if we chose something different?

In the Kiama local government area, we have the opportunity to lead in a more collaborative way. To slow down. To listen. To ask better questions. And to remind ourselves that not every story needs a hero, a victim and a villain.

Sometimes it just needs a group of people willing to work together, with honesty and respect, to get to the heart of the matter.

Let’s try more of that.

#Kiama #KiamaCouncil #LocalGovernment #LeadershipMatters #CollaborativeLeadership #CommunityTrust #DramaTriangle #PublicEngagement #Section711 #GerringongSLSC

How Kiama lost $970,000 in developer contributions and no one explained why

We live in a world where most of us are juggling a lot. We rely on others to shine a light on issues that matter, especially the ones buried in council reports or tangled in planning jargon.

For anyone trying to raise these issues, the first step is making sense of them. The next is explaining them clearly enough that people without a law or planning degree can understand why they matter.

This is one of those issues.

In February 2023, Kiama Council issued a draft development consent for 15 Golden Valley Road, Jamberoo. ( Golden Valley Draft Consent Feb 2023.) That consent included a condition requiring the developer to pay $1 million under Section 7.11 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act.

That figure was based on Council’s adopted Section 94 Contribution Plans, also known as 7.11 plans. These plans require developers to contribute to local infrastructure that supports growth, in addition to the infrastructure built within the subdivision.

Later that year, Council repealed its 7.11 plans. The development was still before the Land and Environment Court. See previous post

Because the 7.11 plans no longer existed, the Court applied a flat Section 7.12 rate of just over $30,000.

Section 7.11 contributions are calculated per new lot and paid by developers at the subdivision stage. In contrast, Section 7.12 applies a flat percentage to individual development applications, which means the cost is passed on to future homeowners when they lodge a DA to build.

As a result of the switch, the community lost around $970,000 in developer contributions that would have been collected upfront to support local infrastructure. While some funds may later be collected from home builders under Section 7.12, this shift places the burden on individuals and leaves the community with a major funding gap.

Kiama’s growth target is 900 new dwellings over the next five years. If each lot contributed $20,000 under a new 7.11 plan, that could generate $18 million for community infrastructure. Under the current 7.12 rate, the return is closer to $6.75 million.

The Mayor has committed to a formal investigation into how this happened. That is a good step. But transparency is not a one-time announcement. It requires consistent, honest communication.

In the next post, we will look at the December 2024 Council report admitting overcharges under Section 7.11, and how those errors were handled.

Disclaimer: I am not a developer, a town planner, or a property lawyer. My blog posts are written in good faith and based on publicly available documents, council records, and conversations with professionals who work in planning, development, and legal fields. Every effort is made to ensure accuracy and clarity. These posts are offered to support greater public understanding of complex issues that affect our community.

#Kiama #Section711 #DeveloperContributions #LocalGovernmentTransparency #CommunityInfrastructure #PlanningMatters #PublicInterest #AccountabilityInCouncil #IndependentVoices #KiamaCouncil

$1 million on the table, $30,000 collected. Let’s talk about why

Cr Erica Warren calls for governance reform after developer contribution failures

We live in a world where most of us are juggling more than we can hold. Family, work, community, finances. In the thick of it, we trust that someone, somewhere, is keeping watch over the systems that shape our lives. We hope decisions are made fairly, money is spent wisely, and when mistakes happen, someone tells the truth.

But that trust only works when people are willing to shine a light on what is really going on.

That is what this blog is about. It is not written by a planner or a lawyer, and it is not written for them either. It is for people who care about what happens in their community, especially when public money and public trust are at stake.

This issue came to light after Kiama Municipal councillor Erica Warren asked a reasonable question. Why had Council shifted from one type of developer contribution to another, (19.4 7.11 20-May-2025-Ordinary-Council-agenda-3 ) and what impact did that have?

The response from Council left out a key fact. A Golden Valley Draft Consent Feb 2023 recommended a $1 million developer contribution under Section 7.11.

However, a majority of councillors at the time voted to reject the application, triggering an appeal to the Land and Environment Court.

While the matter was still before the Court, Council repealed its Section 7.11 contribution plans. By the time the Court ruled, there was no valid Section 7.11 in place. Instead, a Section 7.12 contribution applied, which meant just over $30,000 was collected at subdivision.

Additional contributions, up to $350,000, may be collected from individual homeowners as they lodge development applications to build. But the community still faces a shortfall of around $650,000. And the cost burden has shifted from developer to future residents.

When this shift was reported publicly, Council issued a statement accusing the article of spreading false facts. It did not address the existence of the original $1 million contribution recommendation. And it did not explain the implications of repealing the 7.11 plan while the DA was still under appeal.

This is not about technicalities. It is about transparency.

You do not need to be an expert to understand why this matters. You only need to ask whether important information is being left out, and why.

In the next post, I will walk you through the documents and decisions so you can judge for yourself.

#Kiama #Section711 #DeveloperContributions #LocalGovernmentTransparency #CommunityInfrastructure #PlanningMatters #PublicInterest #AccountabilityInCouncil #IndependentVoices #KiamaCouncil