For the past five years, the owners of 2A Pheasant Point Road have enjoyed sole access to 60 sq metres of prime land on the edge of Kiama Harbour for free.

Last night, the February Council meeting voted 5:3 (one abstention) to begin the process of selling the land to them, for a figure they mentioned at Public Access as being several hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The situation came about because in 2017, due to safety concerns, Council built a fence contiguous with the landowners’ fence which blocked off public access to the road reserve.

The unlikely, cliff top patch of land has been designated as a ‘paper road’ extension of Shoalhaven St since 1869. Crown Lands has approved its sale by Council, seeing no use for it. Money from the sale will be earmarked for carrying out road works throughout the Municipality.

The land has been the subject of a number of complaints and investigation regarding claims of illegal land clearing and unauthorised use of public land.

The current residence was built in 2005 and included a protection order for certain trees located on the Crown Road reserve – but that related to the approved DA works and did not place a permanent protection on the trees. A Report to Council said that between 2007 and 2010, the mature trees disappeared from the road reserve.

When the house was sold to the current owners in 2014, the images show only low vegetation.  All remaining vegetation was cleared without Council knowledge or approval during structural and decking construction work in 2015/6. By Oct 2016, the land was turfed.

The fence Council erected in 2017

The Report by the Director of Engineering and Works said a complaint was made in August 2015, but “the complaint was not effectively investigated or responded to at the time and no action was taken”.

As the result of a follow-up request in late 2021, “an exhaustive review of Council records by the Public Officer has found no rationale for why the matter was not investigated, responded to or what if any action was taken. Relevant staff have since left Council.”

Councillors voting against the motion (Croxford, Keast and Draisma) cited concerns about lack of community consultation, rewarding wrong behaviour and lack of policy on the disposal of public land.

A request by opponents to the sale requested a deferral to consider the issues more fully, but this did not get up.