1 ProposedNot yet coveredcouncil planning feeds for this area are still being addedCoverage expanding
2 Approved1,189dwellings approved in 2024-25, or 1.66 per 100 existing dwellings a yearOfficial · ABS to June 2026See approvals ↓
3 Building28major projects committed or under construction, 11 of them already on siteForward · completions to 2030+See projects ↓
4 Delivered3,176new addresses verified since the 2021 Census, up 11.1% on the existing baseActual · to June 2026Where it landed ↓
In the 2024-25 financial year the ABS recorded 1,189 dwelling approvals across Hervey Bay. AreaSearch tracks 28 major projects here that are committed or under construction, the largest being Sheraton Hervey Bay Resort at an estimated $450m. On the ground, 3,176 new addresses have been verified since the 2021 Census — growth of 11.1% 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 Hervey Bay
What councils and certifiers have formally
permitted — the ABS series, published about four months in arrears.
Approvals are running at 1.66 per 100 existing dwellings a year, well above the Queensland rate of 0.77. Development here remains overwhelmingly detached: houses account for 89% of recent approvals. The mix being approved closely matches what is already standing — 90% houses against 84% of existing homes. The average approved dwelling is valued at $385,000 in construction cost.
For its size, Hervey Bay is adding 1.66 dwellings a year per 100 existing homes — well above the Queensland rate of 0.77 and the national rate of 0.71. That is about 12.9 approvals a year for every 1,000 residents. Building intensity has risen by about 121% across the published series.
Measured against people rather than housing stock, Hervey Bay is approving 16.22 dwellings a year per 1,000 residents — well above the Queensland rate of 6.67. The two rate views differ by household size, which here averages 2.5 people per home. Housing the projection to 2041 would need about 3.33 per 1,000 residents a year.
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 924.
How intensively is it building?
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.
Hervey Bay1.66
Queensland0.77
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)84%
Approved, last 5 years90%
Approved, latest year89%
Detached housesApartments, townhouses & other
Approvals mix by year
Share of each year’s approvals.
2022
2023
2024
2025
2024-25
$497m
Residential work approved
2024-25
$109m
Commercial work approved
construction cost
$385,000
Average value per approved dwelling
last two years
60
Residents per approval
Supply & DemandIs Hervey Bay Building Enough Homes?
The same approvals, measured against the population
they have to house.
Hervey Bay approves about 12.9 new dwellings a year for every 1,000 residents. Since the 2021 Census it has added 8,116 residents and 3,176 new addresses, roughly one new home per 2.6 extra residents — broadly in step with an average household of 2.5. Housing the population projected for 2041 implies roughly 239 new dwellings a year from here, which puts the recent approval rate of 924 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 home2.6
Average household size2.5
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)924
Implied need to 2041239
Implied need assumes the average household stays
at today’s 2.5 people. Approvals are not
completions, and not every approval is built.
BuildingFORWARDMajor Projects & Infrastructure in Hervey Bay
What is funded and moving — the projects large enough
to change how Hervey Bay works, ranked by committed value and how close
they are to delivery.
AreaSearch tracks 28 current projects across Hervey Bay. The largest is Sheraton Hervey Bay Resort at an estimated $450m, due by 2030. That breaks down as 11 under construction, 6 approved and awaiting a start and 11 still in planning. The pipeline is weighted toward residential development, tourism and communities, precincts & urban renewal.
Under construction$109mby 2026
Hervey Bay Community Hub
A $108.7 million five-storey civic development revitalising the Pialba city centre. The project features a new 3,650sqm two-level library, a Council Administration Centre, and a Disaster Resilience Centre. It…
A resort-style luxury land lease community in Hervey Bay, Queensland, offering 132 architecturally designed homes with premium amenities including a swimming pool, clubhouse, bowling greens, cinema, library…
A 47 hectare master planned residential lifestyle community proposed for Dundowran Beach near Hervey Bay. The scheme includes five gated over 55s lifestyle villages, four premium residential estates, an aged…
HBC Build Australia Mixed-Use DevelopmentApproved · Communities, Precincts & Urban Renewal · by 2028 · Pialba - Eli Waters
$180m
Maryborough-Hervey Bay Road and Pialba-Burrum Heads Road Intersection UpgradeUnder construction · Transport & Logistics · by 2027 · Pialba - Eli Waters
Maryborough-Hervey Bay Road and Pialba-Burrum Heads Road Intersection UpgradeUnder construction · Transport & Logistics · by 2027 · Pialba - Eli Waters
$44m
The GladesUnder construction · Residential Development · Urangan - Wondunna
$85m
Pinnacle Hervey Bay EstateUnder construction · Communities, Precincts & Urban Renewal · Urangan - Wondunna
$78m
Astro Aero Aircraft Manufacturing CentreUnder construction · Manufacturing · by 2026 · Urangan - Wondunna
13 further projects in
Hervey Bay are not listed here.
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.
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 Hervey Bay
Applications and major projects plotted where
they are actually proposed, with the
34 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 Hervey Bay
Hervey Bay covers 6 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
Hervey Bay.
Development in Hervey Bay is assessed within the Fraser Coast 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 Hervey Bay.
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
Hervey Bay is Statistical Area Level 3 31904 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 6 Statistical Areas Level 2.
It has an estimated 71,608 residents, +12.8% 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 Hervey Bay — common questions
How many new dwellings were approved in Hervey Bay?
The ABS recorded 1,189 dwelling approvals across Hervey Bay in the 2024-25 financial year, against a five-year average of 924 a year.
What major projects are planned for Hervey Bay?
AreaSearch tracks 28 current major projects in Hervey Bay, 11 of them under construction. The largest include Hervey Bay Community Hub, Liven Beach Road and The Green Hervey Bay.
Which council covers Hervey Bay?
Hervey Bay is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by the Fraser Coast local government area. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.
Is Hervey Bay growing faster than the rest of Queensland?
On development approvals, Hervey Bay is adding new dwellings faster than Queensland as a whole — 1.66 approvals per 100 existing dwellings a year against the state figure of 0.77.
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 March 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.