Building approvals, live development applications and major projects across the
East Pilbara statistical area — covering Port Hedland and East Pilbara.
SA3 51002Rest of WA28,406 residents4 statistical areas
1 ProposedNot yet coveredcouncil planning feeds for this area are still being addedCoverage expanding
2 Approved54dwellings approved in 2024-25, or 0.19 per 100 existing dwellings a yearOfficial · ABS to June 2026See approvals ↓
3 Building40major projects committed or under construction, 18 of them already on siteForward · completions to 2030+See projects ↓
4 Delivered123new addresses verified since the 2021 Census, up 1.2% on the existing baseActual · to June 2026Where it landed ↓
In the 2024-25 financial year the ABS recorded 54 dwelling approvals across East Pilbara. AreaSearch tracks 40 major projects here that are committed or under construction, the largest being Port Hedland Iron Project - Stage 1 at an estimated $4.30bn. On the ground, 123 new addresses have been verified since the 2021 Census — growth of 1.2% on the existing address base.
These four figures are deliberately not added together. An application, an
approval and a project under construction are often the same building at three points in its life,
measured by three different bodies with three different lags. Read them as a sequence, not a total.
ApprovedBuilding Approvals in East Pilbara
What councils and certifiers have formally
permitted — the ABS series, published about four months in arrears.
Approvals are running at 0.19 per 100 existing dwellings a year, well below the Western Australia rate of 0.80. Development here remains overwhelmingly detached: houses account for 100% of recent approvals. Detached houses are 99% of recent approvals against 76% of the existing stock, so new building is more suburban than what is already here. The average approved dwelling is valued at $585,000 in construction cost.
For its size, East Pilbara is adding 0.19 dwellings a year per 100 existing homes — well below the Western Australia rate of 0.80 and the national rate of 0.71. That is about 1.3 approvals a year for every 1,000 residents. Building intensity has risen by about 217% across the published series.
Measured against people rather than housing stock, East Pilbara is approving 1.83 dwellings a year per 1,000 residents — well below the Western Australia rate of 7.50. The two rate views differ by household size, which here averages 3.9 people per home. Housing the projection to 2041 would need about 1.79 per 1,000 residents a year.
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing
homes, with Western Australia and Australia for comparison. This is the
same activity as the totals view, divided by the size of the area — which is the only
fair way to compare a large SA3 with a small one.
Dwelling approvals a year per 1,000
residents, each year divided by that year’s estimated resident
population (ABS ERP at 30 June), not by today’s — which matters most in fast-growing
areas, where a fixed denominator can understate the early years by half. The most recent periods use the latest published ERP, as the population series runs a year behind approvals. Read it alongside the per-100-homes view: the two differ wherever household size does.
Dwelling units approved each financial year. The dashed line is the five-year average of 38.
How intensively is it building?
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.
East Pilbara0.19
Western Australia0.80
Australia0.71
What is here, and what is coming
Detached houses as a share of existing homes,
against the share of recent approvals.
Existing homes (2021 Census)76%
Approved, last 5 years99%
Approved, latest year100%
Detached housesApartments, townhouses & other
Approvals mix by year
Share of each year’s approvals.
2022
2023
2024
2025
2024-25
$32.2m
Residential work approved
2024-25
$270m
Commercial work approved
construction cost
$585,000
Average value per approved dwelling
last two years
531
Residents per approval
Supply & DemandIs East Pilbara Building Enough Homes?
The same approvals, measured against the population
they have to house.
East Pilbara approves about 1.3 new dwellings a year for every 1,000 residents. Since the 2021 Census it has added 2,963 residents but only 123 new addresses — about 24.1 extra people for every home built, against an average household of 3.9. On those numbers supply has not kept pace with growth. Housing the population projected for 2041 implies roughly 51 new dwellings a year from here, which puts the recent approval rate of 38 a year behind what the projection needs.
Growth against supply since the Census
People added for every new address verified,
against the size of an average local household.
People added per new home24.1
Average household size3.9
A bar longer than the household average means
the area gained more residents than its new housing could hold, and the extra had to be
absorbed by existing homes.
Approval rate against projected need
Dwellings a year: what is currently being
approved, against what the 2041 population projection implies.
Approved (5-yr average)38
Implied need to 204151
Implied need assumes the average household stays
at today’s 3.9 people. Approvals are not
completions, and not every approval is built.
BuildingFORWARDMajor Projects & Infrastructure in East Pilbara
What is funded and moving — the projects large enough
to change how East Pilbara works, ranked by committed value and how close
they are to delivery.
AreaSearch tracks 40 current projects across East Pilbara. The largest is Port Hedland Iron Project - Stage 1 at an estimated $4.30bn, due by 2029. That breaks down as 18 under construction, 5 approved and awaiting a start and 17 still in planning. The pipeline is weighted toward energy, transport & logistics and sports & recreation.
Under construction$2.40bnby 2027
Hope Downs 2 Iron Ore Mine
A 50/50 joint venture between Rio Tinto and Hancock Prospecting to develop the Hope Downs 2 and Bedded Hilltop iron ore deposits in the Pilbara. The project comprises two new above-water-table open pits with a…
BHP's Western Ridge Crusher Project is a major brownfield development located 21km southwest of Newman. It involves the design and construction of a new 30 Mtpa primary crusher and a 12km overland conveyor…
Lumsden Point General Cargo Facility and Logistics Hub
Pilbara Ports Authority is developing a multi-user general cargo facility and logistics hub at Lumsden Point to alleviate congestion and support trade diversification. As of 2026, major milestones such as the…
Fortescue Port Hedland Operations Decarbonisation and ModernisationUnder construction · Ports Marinas Fisheries & Aquaculture · by 2030 · Port Hedland
$950m
Resources Community Investment InitiativeUnder construction · Communities · by 2030 · East Pilbara
$750m
Hemi Gold ProjectApproved · Energy · by 2029 · East Pilbara
$4.20bn
Port Hedland Iron Project - Stage 1Approved · Manufacturing · by 2029 · East Pilbara
$4.30bn
South Hedland Integrated Sports HubUnder construction · Sports & Recreation · by 2028 · South Hedland
$220m
WA Regional Digital Connectivity Program (WARDCP)Under construction · Telecommunications · by 2028 · East Pilbara
$193m
Pilbara Energy Transmission and Storage InfrastructureIn planning · Energy · by 2026 · East Pilbara
$3.00bn
Great Northern Highway Overtaking Lanes Newman-Port HedlandUnder construction · Transport & Logistics · by 2026 · East Pilbara
$65m
South Hedland Town Centre RevitalisationUnder construction · Precincts & Urban Renewal · by 2026 · South Hedland
$50m
Newman Horizons Residential EstateUnder construction · Residential Development · by 2026 · Newman
$50m
Western EdgeIn planning · Communities, Precincts & Urban Renewal · by 2032 · South Hedland
$1.50bn
Pilbara Clean Fuels Bunkering HubIn planning · Ports, Marinas, Fisheries & Aquaculture · by 2030 · Port Hedland
$1.70bn
25 further projects in
East Pilbara are not listed here.
Combined values on this page exclude
1 whole-of-state program that
reaches this area but are not
local to it, and 1 record that appear to be
separate stages of a project already counted. Both are still listed
above with their own values.
Denotes AI-based impression for illustrative purposes only, not to be taken as
definitive under any circumstances. Please follow links and conduct other
investigations from the project’s source for actual imagery. Developers and
project owners wishing us to use original imagery please Contact
Us and we will do so.
Beyond 2030:
a further $1.60bn across
2 projects with completion dates further out — mostly precinct-scale programs whose dates are
indicative. Kept out of the chart so the years you can act on stay readable.
Estimated value of tracked projects by the year they are due to
complete, stacked by how certain they are. The dark band is money already being spent;
the pale band is still an intention. Estimates are indicative and mix infrastructure
cost with whole-of-precinct development value, so read the shape rather than the totals.
ProfessionalPRODevelopment Map for East Pilbara
Applications and major projects plotted where
they are actually proposed, with the
58 projects AreaSearch tracks here on their own tab — filterable by type, delivery stage,
area and committed value. To search every application on record rather
than this sample, use the section above.
DistributionWhere Development Is Happening in East Pilbara
East Pilbara covers 4 statistical areas. Follow any of them through for a full profile of population, housing, sales and amenity at local scale.
Map builder
Each area below opens a map builder on its own page — a tool for
putting a map and a table into a report. Pick the place types you want plotted
(schools, supermarkets, medical, child care, transport and the rest of what
AreaSearch holds), add development applications as their own layer, drop your own
points, then recolour, renumber and export the result as a table or CSV.
A this area only toggle clips everything to the boundary you are looking at.
Searches are charged against your credit balance — 1 credit per 40
results from AreaSearch data — and setting filters costs nothing until
you search. The builder works on one suburb-sized area at a time, which is why it
opens per area rather than across the whole of
East Pilbara.
Planning AuthoritiesCouncils Covering East Pilbara
East Pilbara spans 2 local government areas — Port Hedland and East Pilbara. Applications here are assessed by whichever of those councils the site falls within. AreaSearch publishes development
figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries. That is deliberate: the ABS
issues a separate official building-approvals series for local government areas, and totals
built up from statistical areas would not match it. Reporting at SA3 keeps every figure on this page
reconcilable with the published ABS series.
Local government area
Share of East Pilbara
Applications on record
Register read to
Port Hedland
62% of residents
11
November 2025
East Pilbara
38% of residents
—
Not yet collected
CompareNearby Development Hubs
The same view of building approvals, applications and
major projects for areas neighbouring East Pilbara.
Collected from council planning portals. The
earliest signal available, but the least certain: many applications are amended,
withdrawn or refused, values are the applicant’s own estimate, and coverage
varies by council. This is a curated set, not the full council feed:
AreaSearch carries applications of material scale and does not track routine minor
works such as signage, fencing or small alterations, so the counts here are lower
than a council’s own total lodgement figure and should not be compared with it. Applications still shown as under assessment more than
18 months after lodgement are reported separately
and kept out of the live-queue figures: the age profile of open applications is
sharply split between a genuine queue under a year old and a long tail of records
councils never closed. Not every state publishes a cost of works — Queensland,
the Northern Territory and the ACT publish none at all — so on those pages
applications are counted rather than valued and no dollar figure is shown
rather than a partial one. Treated here as a snapshot of the current queue only —
AreaSearch does not chart application counts over time, because the history
reflects when each portal was collected rather than when development happened.
Approved — ABS building approvals
The official series, aggregated to SA3 from
ABS building approvals data, currently published to June 2026.
Counts dwelling units approved, not buildings and not completions. The most recent
financial year is annualised from nine months of data wherever it appears and is
labelled as such.
Building — major projects
Projects tracked individually by AreaSearch
from Infrastructure Australia, state infrastructure agencies, developer disclosures
and council records. Values are estimates and delivery dates are targets. Ranked on
this page by committed value and delivery stage rather than by distance.
Delivered — verified new addresses
New residential addresses verified in the national
address register since the 2021 Census. This is the closest available measure of what has
actually been built, though address creation can lead occupation and lags
construction. It is not a completions count.
Boundaries
East Pilbara is Statistical Area Level 3 51002 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 4 Statistical Areas Level 2.
It has an estimated 28,406 residents, +11.7% since the 2021 Census.
Currency
Measure
Source
To
Dwelling approvals, five-year average
ABS / AreaSearch
June 2026
House share of approvals
ABS / AreaSearch
June 2026
Residents per approval
ABS / AreaSearch
June 2026
Value per approved dwelling
ABS / AreaSearch
June 2026
Commercial work approved
ABS / AreaSearch
June 2026
Verified new addresses since the Census
Address register / AreaSearch
May 2026
Major projects
Infrastructure Australia / state agencies / AreaSearch
Ongoing
Figures on this page are read live from the
AreaSearch database each time it loads, so they update as soon as a source does.
Development in East Pilbara — common questions
How many new dwellings were approved in East Pilbara?
The ABS recorded 54 dwelling approvals across East Pilbara in the 2024-25 financial year, against a five-year average of 38 a year.
What major projects are planned for East Pilbara?
AreaSearch tracks 40 current major projects in East Pilbara, 18 of them under construction. The largest include Hope Downs 2 Iron Ore Mine, Western Ridge Iron Ore Project and Lumsden Point General Cargo Facility and Logistics Hub.
Which council covers East Pilbara?
East Pilbara is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by parts of 2 local government areas — Port Hedland and East Pilbara. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.
Is East Pilbara growing faster than the rest of Western Australia?
On development approvals, East Pilbara is adding new dwellings more slowly than Western Australia as a whole — 0.19 approvals per 100 existing dwellings a year against the state figure of 0.80.
How current is this development data?
ABS building approvals are published with a lag of roughly four months; this page carries the series to June 2026. Development applications are collected from council planning portals and refresh continuously, with the most recent application here lodged in November 2025. Major project records are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Each section carries its own currency label so the four are never confused.
Development data is provided for general information.
Estimated values, dwelling counts and delivery dates come from the lodging or delivering party and
are not independently verified by AreaSearch. Confirm anything material with the relevant council
or agency before relying on it.
Denotes AI-based impression for illustrative purposes only, not to be taken as
definitive under any circumstances. Please follow links and conduct other
investigations from the project’s source for actual imagery. Developers and
project owners wishing us to use original imagery please Contact
Us and we will do so.