Almost every week in Batemans Bay in New South Wales, local social media pages are filled with a familiar plea.
"I have [a] perfect rentals history. I don't like asking for help but now I'm desperate," wrote Amanda Orford, a mother of two.
"The stress level is extreme."
Since her post in October to desperately seek a home on the South Coast, Ms Orford and her family found a rental.
But in the Eurobodalla Shire, an area in the middle of a housing crisis, they are the lucky ones.
There is no lack of will from locals to find a solution, but with 80 per cent of the area covered in protected forest and coastline, the pressing question is: Where are new houses going to go — especially when it involves bulldozing much-loved bushland?
"Everybody in the community seems to want this to happen, but nobody seems to want it in their backyard," said Eurobodalla Shire Council Mayor Mathew Hatcher.
A 'social disaster'
About 50 people are living in a campground near the shire's airport, while even those who can afford high housing prices are unable to find a home because of a lack of stock.
The loss of 500 homes during the Black Summer bushfires three years ago increased pressure, and then the pandemic encouraged people with holiday homes to move to the coast permanently, stripping the market of rentals normally available in winter.
In June, a "social disaster of epic proportions" prompted Cr Hatcher to write to holiday home owners, begging them to release their homes to long term tenants.
In order to build more homes, the local council needs to make more land available, or increase density and height limits in already developed areas.
But for some of those who already call the shire home, destroying the bush and expanding its small, close-knit neighbourhoods, seems too heavy a price.
"We have to come together on this and realise that we can't have people living in cars because we're not willing to budge on other issues," Cr Hatcher says.
A question of local identity
Sally Christiansen lives with her husband and two small children about 60 kilometres south of Batemans Bay in the village of Dalmeny, which is home to about 2,500 people.
"We didn't choose Dalmeny," she says.
"When we moved we were just lucky to find a rental here.
"It's not so much about choosing; it's about taking one of the very few options that might exist."
But Ms Christiansen is worried the Dalmeny she has grown to love is under threat.
Some 100 hectares of bushland at the back of the town is zoned for urban development, with 40 hectares having been sold to a Sydney developer.
"We're picturing the noise of construction over years and years in people's backyards, and we're also just picturing the change to the character of not just Dalmeny, but to all of the different towns up and down the coast," Ms Christiansen said.
Dalmeny matters
Concerned locals have formed a group, Dalmeny Matters, to fight the development.
They say it will destroy one of the only areas of forest untouched by the Black Summer bushfires, a critical habitat for endangered species such as yellow-bellied gliders.
Keith Joliffe volunteers for local environmental group CoastWatchers and has spent the last decade trying to save koala populations.
He says he is willing to live in high density housing if it means saving endangered animals from disappearing.
Mr Joliffe says the community must accept that saving natural environments may require giving up the dream of a detached family home.
"We can't just continue to chop off bits of bush to add more housing," he says.
Ms Christiansen says the Dalmeny community agrees more homes must be built, "but we don't have to accept these poor quality, profit-driven plans".
"We can say that as communities and as voters and ratepayers," she says.
The Dalmeny Matters group wants more housing built in already developed areas like Batemans Bay and Moruya.
There's 'no silver bullet'
Dalmeny is identified as a growth area in a council strategy that projects the shire's population to grow by 15,000 people by 2031.
That number is expected to be higher due to people migrating from cities during the pandemic.
Eurobodalla Shire Council Strategy and Sustainable Growth manager Liz Rankin says there needs to be a mix that includes development in already urbanised areas as well as new lifestyle housing, like those in Dalmeny.
"We need it all," she says.
She says there are a lot of employers who cannot attract and retain staff because there is no choice of housing in the shire.
"For example, that land in the Dalmeny area may meet the needs of a GP or a school teacher, or even a planner at council," Ms Rankin says.
She says there is no "silver bullet".
"As much as somebody living in a sort of unique, low density coastal town says, 'Well, we should be housing people in Batemans Bay', a Batemans Bay resident will say, 'Well, I don't want Batemans Bay turning into the Gold Coast'."
