What are the options for local development with Azure Event Hubs?
Azure Event Hubs does not have an emulator that can be installed locally. You'll need to create an Event Hubs instance in Azure and use that for development and testing purposes.
One option is to connect to the Kafka endpoint, and test your application as a Kafka application.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/event-hubs/event-hubs-for-kafka-ecosystem-overview
It may not be elegant, but apparently there aren't many good options out there. It will at least make it easier to migrate to Kafka later, if needed.