Development in Innisfail - Cassowary Coast

QLD

Building approvals, live development applications and major projects across the Innisfail - Cassowary Coast statistical area — covering Cassowary Coast, Cairns and Yarrabah and 1 more.

SA3 30603 Rest of Qld 37,365 residents 5 statistical areas
Approved · FY25 215 dwellings approved
vs 5-yr average 161 average approvals a year
In the queue 47 applications on record
Major projects none currently tracked
Data Sources ABSCouncil planning portals ABS to June 2026 · Refreshed ABS QuickStats SA3 30603 How we calculate this

The Pipeline Development Pipeline in Innisfail - Cassowary Coast

1 Proposed 47 applications on record, though this council feed does not publish assessment status Latest March 2026 See applications ↓
2 Approved 215 dwellings approved in 2024-25, or 0.53 per 100 existing dwellings a year Official · ABS to June 2026 See approvals ↓
3 Building None tracked no major projects are currently recorded for this area Forward
4 Delivered 529 new addresses verified since the 2021 Census, up 3.1% on the existing base Actual · to June 2026 Where it landed ↓
In the 2024-25 financial year the ABS recorded 215 dwelling approvals across Innisfail - Cassowary Coast. On the ground, 529 new addresses have been verified since the 2021 Census — growth of 3.1% 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.

Approved Building Approvals in Innisfail - Cassowary Coast

What councils and certifiers have formally permitted — the ABS series, published about four months in arrears.

Approvals are running at 0.53 per 100 existing dwellings a year, below the Queensland rate of 0.77. Development here remains overwhelmingly detached: houses account for 83% of recent approvals. The mix being approved closely matches what is already standing — 86% houses against 87% of existing homes. The average approved dwelling is valued at $393,000 in construction cost.

Dwelling units approved each financial year. The dashed line is the five-year average of 161.

How intensively is it building?

Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.

Innisfail - Cassowary Coast 0.53
Queensland 0.77
Australia 0.71

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) 87%
Approved, last 5 years 86%
Approved, latest year 83%
Detached houses Apartments, townhouses & other

Approvals mix by year

Share of each year’s approvals.

2022
2023
2024
2025
2024-25
$91.5m
Residential work approved
2024-25
$38.8m
Commercial work approved
construction cost
$393,000
Average value per approved dwelling
last two years
190
Residents per approval

Supply & Demand Is Innisfail - Cassowary Coast Building Enough Homes?

The same approvals, measured against the population they have to house.

Innisfail - Cassowary Coast approves about 4.3 new dwellings a year for every 1,000 residents. Since the 2021 Census it has added 2,032 residents but only 529 new addresses — about 3.8 extra people for every home built, against an average household of 2.8. On those numbers supply has not kept pace with growth. Housing the population projected for 2041 implies roughly 44 new dwellings a year from here, which puts the recent approval rate of 161 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 home 3.8
Average household size 2.8

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) 161
Implied need to 2041 44

Implied need assumes the average household stays at today’s 2.8 people. Approvals are not completions, and not every approval is built.

ProposedLEADING · to March 2026 Development Applications in Innisfail - Cassowary Coast

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. 13 of them carry an AreaSearch analyst assessment — look for the Analysed marker in the search below.

AreaSearch tracks 47 development applications of material scale lodged with councils across Innisfail - Cassowary Coast, the most recent in March 2026. The most common types in the queue are retail, commercial and industrial.
Coverage

AreaSearch reads applications directly from each council’s planning register. Innisfail - Cassowary Coast is not yet covered evenly. Cairns (10% of residents) — nothing lodged since April 2023; Yarrabah (7.1% of residents) — nothing lodged since November 2023. Those councils are under-represented in every count and chart below.

Number of applications by development type. This is the clearest single picture of what kind of place Innisfail - Cassowary Coast is being asked to become. Councils in Queensland do not publish an estimated cost of works in their planning feeds, so applications here are counted rather than valued.

Where the applications stand

As reported by the council. Highlighted rows are applications still in assessment.

Listed 2

2 applications are still marked under assessment but were lodged more than 18 months ago. Councils often leave determined or abandoned applications open in their feeds, so they are counted here but excluded from the live queue above.

A further 45 applications carry no status in the council feed.

By local government area

Applications on record within each council area that overlaps Innisfail - Cassowary Coast. This counts applications inside this statistical area only — it is not a total for the council.

Cassowary Coast 42
Cairns 4

Recent applications in Innisfail - Cassowary Coast

By the number of dwellings proposed, as lodged. Figures are the applicant’s own and are not verified by AreaSearch.

Industrial mechanical workshop and warehouse Tully · lodged Mar 2026
Change of classification from a dwelling to a ground-floor cafe Tully · lodged Feb 2026
Replacement of front entrance sign and installation of fire safety systems at an existing aged care facility Innisfail · lodged Feb 2026
Construction of a 478.85m2 contractor's depot shed Tully · lodged Oct 2025
Side boundary setback dispensation for an extension to an existing dwelling house for storage and a workshop Tully · lodged Oct 2025
Stage 1 of a 1,176m2 Class 7b storage facility with plumbing and drainage Innisfail · lodged Sep 2025
Slab and tie downs for a temporary Class 5 office building Innisfail · lodged Jul 2025
Construction of a transport depot shed with an awning and a mezzanine level office Johnstone · lodged May 2025
Approvals Pipeline Development Applications in Innisfail - Cassowary Coast

Development applications around Innisfail - Cassowary Coast

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.
Applications
In the local catchment
Est. Value
Where disclosed
Under Assessment
Awaiting determination
Determined
Approved or decided
Approvals pipeline Status, location, timing and project scale

Loading development applications…

Lodged Address Description Type Distance Status

SOURCE: Planning portals and council registers, compiled by AreaSearch. Distance & bearing measured from the suburb midpoint.

ProfessionalPRO Development Map for Innisfail - Cassowary Coast

Applications and major projects plotted where they are actually proposed, with the 1 project 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.

Distribution Where Development Is Happening in Innisfail - Cassowary Coast

Innisfail - Cassowary Coast 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 Innisfail - Cassowary Coast.

Tully area profile

No separate approvals series published
18 applications on record · 227 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Innisfail area profile

No separate approvals series published
17 applications on record · 92 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Johnstone area profile

No separate approvals series published
6 applications on record · 114 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Babinda area profile

No separate approvals series published
5 applications on record · 96 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Yarrabah area profile

No separate approvals series published
1 application on record
Build a map

Planning Authorities Councils Covering Innisfail - Cassowary Coast

Innisfail - Cassowary Coast spans 4 local government areas — Cassowary Coast, Cairns, Yarrabah and Tablelands. 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 areaShare of Innisfail - Cassowary CoastApplications on recordRegister read to
Cassowary Coast 83% of residents 42 March 2026
Cairns 10% of residents 4 April 2023
Yarrabah 7.1% of residents 1 November 2023
Tablelands 0.0% of residents Not yet collected

Compare Nearby Development Hubs

The same view of building approvals, applications and major projects for areas neighbouring Innisfail - Cassowary Coast.

Data & Method Sources & Method for Innisfail - Cassowary Coast

The four tenses, and what each one can tell you

Proposed — development applications
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

Innisfail - Cassowary Coast is Statistical Area Level 3 30603 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 5 Statistical Areas Level 2. It has an estimated 37,365 residents, +5.8% since the 2021 Census.

Currency

MeasureSourceTo
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 March 2026

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 Innisfail - Cassowary Coast — common questions

How many new dwellings were approved in Innisfail - Cassowary Coast?

The ABS recorded 215 dwelling approvals across Innisfail - Cassowary Coast in the 2024-25 financial year, against a five-year average of 161 a year.

How many development applications are lodged in Innisfail - Cassowary Coast?

AreaSearch tracks 47 development applications of material scale across Innisfail - Cassowary Coast — routine minor works such as signage and fencing are not included, so this is not a count of every application lodged. Applications are assessed within the Cassowary Coast, Cairns and Yarrabah local government areas. The most recent application in our data was lodged in March 2026.

Which council covers Innisfail - Cassowary Coast?

Innisfail - Cassowary Coast is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by parts of 4 local government areas — Cassowary Coast, Cairns, Yarrabah and Tablelands. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.

Is Innisfail - Cassowary Coast growing faster than the rest of Queensland?

On development approvals, Innisfail - Cassowary Coast is adding new dwellings more slowly than Queensland as a whole — 0.53 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.