The Pipeline Development Pipeline in Litchfield
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 Northern Territory 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 81.
How intensively is it building?
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.
What is here, and what is coming
Detached houses as a share of existing homes, against the share of recent approvals.
Approvals mix by year
Share of each year’s approvals.
Supply & Demand Is Litchfield Building Enough Homes?
The same approvals, measured against the population they have to house.
Growth against supply since the Census
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.
Approval rate against projected need
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 3.4 people. Approvals are not completions, and not every approval is built.
ProposedLEADING Development Applications in Litchfield
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. 1 of them carry an AreaSearch analyst assessment — look for the Analysed marker in the search below.
AreaSearch reads applications directly from each council’s planning register. This whole area sits within one council, and none of the applications on record from its register carry a lodgement date, so none of them can be placed in time. Treat the counts below as a record of what has been collected rather than as a current queue.
Number of applications by development type. This is the clearest single picture of what kind of place Litchfield is being asked to become. Councils in Northern Territory 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.
By local government area
Applications on record within each council area that overlaps Litchfield. This counts applications inside this statistical area only — it is not a total for the council.
Recent applications in Litchfield
By the number of dwellings proposed, as lodged. Figures are the applicant’s own and are not verified by AreaSearch.
Development applications around Litchfield
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 Litchfield
Applications and major projects plotted where they are actually proposed, with the 2 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.
Distribution Where Development Is Happening in Litchfield
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 Litchfield.
Planning Authorities Councils Covering Litchfield
| Local government area | Share of Litchfield | Applications on record | Register read to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Litchfield | 100% of residents | 87 | No dates published |
| Palmerston | 0.3% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
Compare Nearby Development Hubs
The same view of building approvals, applications and major projects for areas neighbouring Litchfield.
Data & Method Sources & Method for Litchfield
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
Litchfield is Statistical Area Level 3 70103 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 4 Statistical Areas Level 2. It has an estimated 24,340 residents, +16.0% 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 | Current |
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 Litchfield — common questions
How many new dwellings were approved in Litchfield?
The ABS recorded 117 dwelling approvals across Litchfield in the 2024-25 financial year, against a five-year average of 81 a year.
How many development applications are lodged in Litchfield?
AreaSearch tracks 87 development applications of material scale across Litchfield — 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 Litchfield and Palmerston local government areas.
Which council covers Litchfield?
Litchfield is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by parts of 2 local government areas — Litchfield and Palmerston. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.
Is Litchfield growing faster than the rest of Northern Territory?
On development approvals, Litchfield is adding new dwellings faster than Northern Territory as a whole — 0.35 approvals per 100 existing dwellings a year against the state figure of 0.26.
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. 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.