Building approvals, live development applications and major projects across the Far North statistical area — covering Mareeba, Cook and Torres Strait Island and 14 more.
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.
What councils and certifiers have formally permitted — the ABS series, published about four months in arrears.
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing homes, with Queensland 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 105.
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.
Detached houses as a share of existing homes, against the share of recent approvals.
Share of each year’s approvals.
The same approvals, measured against the population they have to house.
People added for every new address verified, against the size of an average local household.
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.
Dwellings a year: what is currently being approved, against what the 2041 population projection implies.
Implied need assumes the average household stays at today’s 3.6 people. Approvals are not completions, and not every approval is built.
What is funded and moving — the projects large enough to change how Far North works, ranked by committed value and how close they are to delivery.
A $200 million redevelopment of the Cooktown Multipurpose Health Service (CMPHS) to replace the existing 1980s facility with a modern, culturally appropriate hospital serving Cook Shire and surrounding Cape…
Greenfield residential subdivision at 2 Hope Street, Cooktown, reconfiguring one lot into 12 residential lots under Cook Shire DA/4310 with operational works approval DA/4590. Currently under construction as…
Queensland Government review of the Far North Queensland Regional Plan 2009, now advanced to the Draft Far North Queensland Regional Plan 2025. Public consultation ran from 12 November 2025 to 5 January 2026…
Denotes AI-based impression for illustrative purposes only, not to be taken as
definitive under any circumstances. Please follow links and conduct other
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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.
Applications and major projects plotted where they are actually proposed, with the 8 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.
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 Far North.
| Local government area | Share of Far North | Applications on record | Register read to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mareeba | 19% of residents | 4 | March 2025 |
| Cook | 14% of residents | 1 | May 2025 |
| Torres Strait Island | 13% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Weipa | 13% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Torres | 11% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Northern Peninsula Area | 8.6% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Aurukun | 3.4% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Kowanyama | 3.4% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Hope Vale | 3.0% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Napranum | 2.7% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Etheridge | 2.2% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Lockhart River | 2.0% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Pormpuraaw | 1.9% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Mapoon | 1.3% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Wujal Wujal | 0.9% of residents | 1 | September 2025 |
| Croydon | 0.9% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Douglas | 0.2% of residents | 6 | May 2025 |
The same view of building approvals, applications and major projects for areas neighbouring Far North.
Far North is Statistical Area Level 3 31501 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 9 Statistical Areas Level 2. It has an estimated 33,990 residents, +5.5% since the 2021 Census.
| 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.
The ABS recorded 86 dwelling approvals across Far North in the 2024-25 financial year, against a five-year average of 105 a year.
AreaSearch tracks 6 current major projects in Far North, 2 of them under construction. The largest include Cooktown Multi-Purpose Health Service Redevelopment, Gigers Residential Subdivision and Draft Far North Queensland Regional Plan 2025.
Far North is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by parts of 17 local government areas — Mareeba, Cook, Torres Strait Island, Weipa, Torres, Northern Peninsula Area, Aurukun, Kowanyama, Hope Vale, Napranum, Etheridge, Lockhart River, Pormpuraaw, Mapoon, Wujal Wujal, Croydon and Douglas. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.
On development approvals, Far North is adding new dwellings more slowly than Queensland as a whole — 0.54 approvals per 100 existing dwellings a year against the state figure of 0.77.
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 May 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.