1 Proposed1applications in assessmentLeading · to July 2026See applications ↓
2 Approved217dwellings approved in 2024-25, or 0.44 per 100 existing dwellings a yearOfficial · ABS to June 2026See approvals ↓
3 Building12major projects committed or under construction, 7 of them already on siteForward · completions to 2028+See projects ↓
4 Delivered2,285new addresses verified since the 2021 Census, up 6.8% on the existing baseActual · to June 2026Where it landed ↓
In the 2024-25 financial year the ABS recorded 217 dwelling approvals across Essendon. Right now, 1 development application is lodged in the Moonee Valley local government area. AreaSearch tracks 12 major projects here that are committed or under construction, the largest being Moonee Valley Park at an estimated $2.00bn. On the ground, 2,285 new addresses have been verified since the 2021 Census — growth of 6.8% 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 Essendon
What councils and certifiers have formally
permitted — the ABS series, published about four months in arrears.
Approvals are running at 0.44 per 100 existing dwellings a year, below the Victoria rate of 0.80. Recent approvals are dominated by attached housing — apartments, townhouses and other non-detached dwellings make up 75% of them. That is a clear shift back toward detached housing — the five-year average is 14% houses. Detached houses make up 43% of the homes already standing here but only 14% of the past five years of approvals, so the area is densifying. The average approved dwelling is valued at $573,000 in construction cost.
For its size, Essendon is adding 0.44 dwellings a year per 100 existing homes — below the Victoria rate of 0.80 and the national rate of 0.71. That is about 7.4 approvals a year for every 1,000 residents. Building intensity has fallen by about 54% across the published series.
Measured against people rather than housing stock, Essendon is approving 5.90 dwellings a year per 1,000 residents — below the Victoria rate of 7.97. The two rate views differ by household size, which here averages 2.4 people per home. Housing the projection to 2041 would need about 4.08 per 1,000 residents a year.
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing
homes, with Victoria 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 555.
How intensively is it building?
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.
Essendon0.44
Victoria0.80
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)43%
Approved, last 5 years14%
Approved, latest year25%
Detached housesApartments, townhouses & other
Approvals mix by year
Share of each year’s approvals.
2022
2023
2024
2025
2024-25
$220m
Residential work approved
2024-25
$74.1m
Commercial work approved
construction cost
$573,000
Average value per approved dwelling
last two years
256
Residents per approval
Supply & DemandIs Essendon Building Enough Homes?
The same approvals, measured against the population
they have to house.
Essendon approves about 7.4 new dwellings a year for every 1,000 residents. Since the 2021 Census it has added 6,158 residents and 2,285 new addresses, roughly one new home per 2.7 extra residents — broadly in step with an average household of 2.4. Housing the population projected for 2041 implies roughly 306 new dwellings a year from here, which puts the recent approval rate of 555 a year comfortably ahead of 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 home2.7
Average household size2.4
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)555
Implied need to 2041306
Implied need assumes the average household stays
at today’s 2.4 people. Approvals are not
completions, and not every approval is built.
What is being asked for right now — applications
collected from council planning portals, before any of it reaches the ABS series above.
AreaSearch tracks applications of material scale; routine minor works such as signage and
fencing changes are not carried, so these are not counts of every application lodged. 33
of them carry an AreaSearch analyst assessment — look for the
Analysed marker in the search below.
AreaSearch tracks 1,311 development applications of material scale lodged with council across Essendon, the most recent in July 2026. The biggest categories in the queue by value are childcare, commercial and multi-residential.
Estimated value of applications by development type. This is the clearest
single picture of what kind of place Essendon is being asked to become. A further 18 applications sit across
2 smaller categories,
too few to plot.
Where the applications stand
As reported by the council. Highlighted rows are
applications still in assessment.
Approved123
Processing on original development file66
Withdrawn25
Application Lapsed22
Permit approved by VCAT9
Advertising6
A further 1,034 applications carry no status in the council feed.
By local government area
Applications on record within each council area that
overlaps Essendon. This counts applications inside this
statistical area only — it is not a total for the council.
Moonee Valley1,311
No current list of the largest applications can be shown for Essendon.
Nothing on record here is both still open and lodged within the last
18 months. Victoria has no
state-wide planning portal and its council coverage is uneven, so what AreaSearch can
collect here is a record of past activity rather than a live queue. We are currently
investigating a solution. The
1,311 applications AreaSearch holds for this area, lodged
between Jun 2016 and Apr 2021, are counted in the figures above.
BuildingFORWARDMajor Projects & Infrastructure in Essendon
What is funded and moving — the projects large enough
to change how Essendon works, ranked by committed value and how close
they are to delivery.
AreaSearch tracks 12 current projects across Essendon. The largest is Moonee Valley Park at an estimated $2.00bn, due by 2037. That breaks down as 7 under construction, 4 approved and awaiting a start and 1 still in planning. The pipeline is weighted toward residential development, sports & recreation and communities, precincts & urban renewal.
A staged, precinct-wide renewal of the Flemington public housing estate under the Ground Lease Model. The Holland Court development is replacing outdated towers with 286 modern, energy-efficient homes (50…
Led by Homes Victoria, this major revitalisation replaces ageing high-rise towers with approximately 1,000 modern, energy-efficient homes. The project follows a Ground Lease Model, delivering a mix of social…
Moonee Valley Racing Club Grandstand & Clubhouse Redevelopment
A $200 million redevelopment of the Moonee Valley Racecourse. Construction commenced in late 2025. The project features a new grandstand Event Centre, re-oriented racetrack, an 83-room boutique residential…
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 $2.58bn across
3 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.
Approvals PipelineDevelopment Applications in Essendon
Development applications around
Essendon
Development approvals is a new addition to AreaSearch.
We’re actively expanding council coverage and refining the dataset — details and statuses for some councils may be partial. Check back regularly for the latest pipeline.
Application search is not available in Victoria.
AreaSearch holds 1,311 applications for Essendon, but they are a record of past activity rather than a current register. Victoria has no state-wide planning portal and its council coverage is uneven, so we
have switched the search off here rather than return partial answers. We are
currently investigating a solution. No credits are charged for Victorian
applications, and building approvals from the ABS and the major projects we track
are unaffected.
SOURCE: Planning portals and council registers, compiled by AreaSearch. Distance & bearing measured from the suburb midpoint.
ProfessionalPRODevelopment Map for Essendon
Applications and major projects plotted where
they are actually proposed, with the
24 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 Essendon
Essendon covers 5 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
Essendon.
Development in Essendon is assessed within the Moonee Valley local government area. 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.
CompareNearby Development Hubs
The same view of building approvals, applications and
major projects for areas neighbouring Essendon.
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
Essendon is Statistical Area Level 3 20603 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 5 Statistical Areas Level 2.
It has an estimated 74,870 residents, +9.0% 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
Development applications
Council planning portals
July 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 Essendon — common questions
How many new dwellings were approved in Essendon?
The ABS recorded 217 dwelling approvals across Essendon in the 2024-25 financial year, against a five-year average of 555 a year.
How many development applications are lodged in Essendon?
AreaSearch tracks 1,311 development applications of material scale across Essendon — routine minor works such as signage and fencing are not included, so this is not a count of every application lodged, of which 1 remain in assessment. Applications are assessed within the Moonee Valley local government area. The most recent application in our data was lodged in July 2026.
What major projects are planned for Essendon?
AreaSearch tracks 12 current major projects in Essendon, 7 of them under construction. The largest include Flemington Housing Precinct Renewal (Holland Court), Flemington Estate Renewal (Public Housing Revitalisation Program) and Moonee Valley Racing Club Grandstand & Clubhouse Redevelopment.
Which council covers Essendon?
Essendon is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by the Moonee Valley local government area. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.
Is Essendon growing faster than the rest of Victoria?
On development approvals, Essendon is adding new dwellings more slowly than Victoria as a whole — 0.44 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 July 2026. 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.