The state did not support Jamberoo's two heritage areas. The plan now proposes seven listings, one of them 313 metres of sandstone kerb

What the state removed, and what it left

On 17 March 2026 Kiama council voted, nine to none, to send its Jamberoo Heritage Review planning proposal to the state for a gateway determination (minutes, item 14.1). The proposal it sent had three parts: six new heritage items, two new heritage conservation areas, and changes to three existing items. A conservation area covers a whole streetscape rather than one building, and what it would mean for the lots inside it is where the state and the council's consultants parted.

The gateway determination, dated 7 May 2026 and signed by a director of the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure as the Minister's delegate, let the proposal proceed on conditions. The first was that the planning proposal must be updated to remove all references to the proposed Allowrie Street and Churchill Street Heritage Conservation Areas. The council's updated proposal of August 2026 records the result: the department did not support progressing with the two proposed Heritage Conservation Areas, and the proposal now lists seven new items, the seventh being the sandstone kerbing and culverts along Allowrie Street.

The Jamberoo proposal before and after the gateway

Kiama council minutes of 17 March 2026, the planning department's gateway report (May 2026) and the council's updated planning proposal (August 2026), read 8 October 2026.

Sent to the state, March 2026

New heritage items: 6 buildings
Conservation areas: 2: Allowrie Street and Churchill Street
Existing items amended: 3: a commercial building, the Uniting Church and its hall
Heritage design rules: A new development control plan topic for the conservation areas, to be exhibited alongside

On exhibition, August to September 2026

New heritage items: 7: the same 6 buildings, plus 313 metres of sandstone kerbing and culverts on Allowrie Street
Conservation areas: None
Existing items amended: The same 3
Heritage design rules: Dropped: the proposal says the topic will not progress because the areas are not proceeding

Counts and item descriptions are the documents' own. The Planning Portal's summary of the proposal, read 8 October 2026, still describes six items and two conservation areas; the exhibited proposal document is the one used here.

The six buildings are the RSL Hall and its sandstone wall at 1 Allowrie Street (built about 1952), timber cottages at 19 Chapel Lane, 65 Churchill Street (listed as the Doctor's Surgery) and 71 Churchill Street, the house Elmsmere at 48 Churchill Street, and a house at 197 Clover Hill Road that the proposal describes as an early work of the architect Glenn Murcutt, built in 1981 and 1982. The proposal was on exhibition from 24 August to 27 September 2026, according to the Planning Portal, which now lists it as post-exhibition.

Why the department said no

The department's reasons are in its letter to the council and its gateway report. There are three. Less than half of each area is heritage items or contributory buildings. Existing heritage items are already protected, and buildings near them already have to be visually sympathetic. And the areas may also unnecessarily or unreasonably restrict the future (albeit modest) development potential of sites on Allowrie Street and Churchill Street (including for housing). For the six individual listings, by contrast, the report found a negligible impact on housing delivery and potential in Jamberoo.

The under-half test comes from the council's own peer reviewer. City Plan Heritage, in its February 2026 independent review, classed every lot in both areas and wrote that Heritage conservation areas work best when they are conserving significant streetscapes and areas that are occupied by contributory buildings (>50%). Neither area reached that.

Every lot in the two proposed conservation areas, one square each

Allowrie Street review's figure: 43%, 13 of 30

Churchill Street review's figure: 45%, 19 of 42

Heritage item, existing or proposed
Contributory building
Neutral
Uncharacteristic
Undeveloped

Categories and counts are City Plan Heritage's contribution rankings (February 2026, pages 66 and 69). For Allowrie Street the review states 30 lots and 43 per cent, but its own category counts add to 31, shown here; 13 of 31 is 42 per cent. Either way both areas are under half, and the six undeveloped Allowrie Street lots are car parks.

But the same reviewer supported both areas anyway, on other grounds. For Allowrie Street it was the kerbing: As the remnant sandstone kerbing helps to define the original village centre for Jamberoo. the nomination for the creation of the HCA along Allowrie Street is supported. For Churchill Street it found no cohesive dominant aesthetic or common period character, but a streetscape of landscaped gardens around the Anglican Church and the public school, and supported the area with its northern boundary pulled back. The study that first proposed the Churchill Street area, by Niche Environment and Heritage in 2023, had argued for it on efficiency.

This proposed HCA will accomplish the administrative task of regulating development to protect Heritage Value, without the inefficiency of listing many of the structures within the HCA which warrant it

Niche Environment and Heritage, Jamberoo Heritage Review summary report, 31 January 2023, on the Churchill Street area; quoted in the department's gateway report.

The department was not persuaded on either area. On Allowrie Street its report suggested Council may wish to pursue local heritage listing of the sandstone kerbing along Allowrie Street separately via a future planning proposal. The council did not wait: its August proposal says the department would support this being listed as a Heritage Item, and the kerbing went into this proposal as item I194. The proposal describes the stone as locally hewn, set in mortar on concrete base so appears to be modern, and as defining the original 19th century boundaries of the village centre. Churchill Street got no substitute.

How 14 recommended places became six buildings

The conservation areas are not the only thing that narrowed. Niche's 2023 study considered 29 places and recommended 14 for listing. City Plan Heritage's review, which counts 15 nominated items, found that seven met the criteria for heritage listing in Heritage NSW's guidelines. One more drops out between the review and the proposal: a cottage on Drualla Road that the review found met the criteria is not among the six. Neither the gateway report nor the updated proposal says why, and we could not read the council's 17 March report.

From suggestions to listings, one square each

ConsideredNiche study, 2023

Recommended for listingNiche study, 2023

Met the criteriapeer review, Feb 2026

In the council's proposalMarch 2026

On exhibitionAug to Sep 2026

6 + kerb

Individual places only; the two conservation areas are not counted. Sources: Niche summary report, 31 January 2023 (29 considered, 14 recommended, 2 more for further research); City Plan Heritage review, February 2026, conclusion (seven of the 15 it counted); gateway report, May 2026 (six); updated proposal, August 2026 (seven, the open square being the kerbing).

The August exhibition was at least the fourth time residents were asked. The updated proposal records initial consultation in 2022, and says the 2023 study drew 11 submissions when it was exhibited that year, and the study and the peer review together drew 8 more between 24 October and 30 November 2025, after a landowner information session on 16 October 2025. As at 8 October 2026, no document on the portal counts the submissions on the August version.

What happens next

The proposal's path, and the dates still ahead

31 January 2023Niche study completed; exhibited in 2023, 11 submissions.
24 Oct to 30 Nov 2025Study and peer review exhibited together; 8 submissions.
17 March 2026Council endorses the proposal, two conservation areas included, nine votes to none.
7 May 2026Gateway determination: proceed, conservation areas removed, Heritage NSW to be consulted.
24 Aug to 27 Sep 2026Updated proposal on exhibition: six buildings and the kerbing.
October 2026Target in the council's timeline: submissions reviewed and the report to council for final endorsement.
November 2026Target in the council's timeline: the plan amendment published.
8 January 2027Deadline in the gateway determination for completing the plan.

Steps taken filled, targets still ahead greyed. Dates from the Niche study, the updated proposal's consultation section and timeline table (page 21), the council minutes, the gateway determination and the Planning Portal.

The council was authorised to finish the plan itself as the local plan-making authority, so the next decision is the council's, not the state's. Its resolution of 17 March asked for a further report on finalisation. Kiama's webcast archive listed no council meeting after 15 September as at 8 October 2026, and its next listed session is a public access session on 19 October. The conservation areas are not part of what the council will consider: the gateway condition removed them from the proposal. When the council considers the final report, we will report what it decides and how many submissions it received.

Our read

This is opinion, built on the documents above. The department's under-half test is a fair one, and it was the council's own reviewer that set it out. But the reviewer did not stop at the test: it looked at what actually holds each street together, a kerb line on Allowrie Street and a run of gardens on Churchill Street, and backed both areas. The department kept the kerb and set the gardens aside. For Allowrie Street that outcome is close to what the reviewer wanted. For Churchill Street the protection now sits only on the individually listed buildings, three existing and three proposed, and the street between them, which is what both studies valued, has none. The development the department was protecting is, in its own word, modest. If the council thinks that character is worth protecting, it could ask again in a new proposal, with a smaller area drawn around the cluster of heritage and contributory buildings near the church and school that its reviewer identified.

How we sourced this

We read the planning proposal's page on the NSW Planning Portal and the documents attached to it: the council's minutes of 17 March 2026, the gateway determination, the department's letter and gateway report, the council's updated proposal of August 2026, City Plan Heritage's February 2026 peer review and Niche Environment and Heritage's January 2023 summary report. The PDF text layer of the updated proposal drops the letter f; we checked quoted passages against the rendered pages. The percentages are the peer review's own, and we recounted its category tallies; the Allowrie Street difference is described in the figure. Lot counts are allotments as the review classed them, not buildings or owners. We checked Kiama council's meeting webcast site for meetings since the exhibition closed. Kiama council's main website refuses our automated reads, so we have not read its 17 March report or any engagement summary there. We have not contacted the council or the department. The section headed Our read is opinion.

Sources

NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, Jamberoo Heritage Review, PP-2026-486, NSW Planning Portal, read 8 October 2026: stage, exhibition dates 24 August to 27 September 2026, the portal's summary, and the attached documents below.
Kiama Municipal Council, Minutes of the Ordinary Meeting, 17 March 2026, extract, item 14.1, read 8 October 2026: resolution 26/053OC and the vote.
NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, Gateway determination, PP-2026-486, 7 May 2026, read 8 October 2026: the conditions, Heritage NSW consultation and the 8 January 2027 completion date.
NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, Letter to Kiama Municipal Council, 7 May 2026, read 8 October 2026: the reasons the conservation areas were not supported and the council's plan-making authority.
NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, Gateway determination report, PP-2026-486, May 2026, read 8 October 2026: the proposal as sent, the department's assessment of each area, the kerbing suggestion and the housing finding.
Kiama Municipal Council, Planning Proposal, Jamberoo Heritage Review, August 2026, version 2, post gateway, read 8 October 2026: the seven items, the kerbing, the dropped design rules, submissions, the information session and the project timeline.
City Plan Heritage, Jamberoo Heritage Study Independent Review, February 2026, read 8 October 2026: the contribution rankings, the over-half guide, support for both areas and the seven items meeting the criteria.
Niche Environment and Heritage, Jamberoo Heritage Review, Heritage Places Study: Summary Report, 31 January 2023, read 8 October 2026: places considered and recommended, and the case for both areas.
Kiama Municipal Council, council meeting webcast archive and front page, read 8 October 2026: meetings held since 15 September and the next listed session.

Spotted an error, or read these documents differently? Tell us and we will check it against the documents and log the outcome here.