Building approvals, live development applications and major projects across the
Melbourne City statistical area — covering Melbourne, Moonee Valley and Maribyrnong.
SA3 20604Greater Melbourne194,769 residents13 statistical areas
The PipelineDevelopment Pipeline in Melbourne City
1 Proposed14applications in assessmentLeading · to April 2026See applications ↓
2 Approved3,559dwellings approved in 2024-25, or 1.93 per 100 existing dwellings a yearOfficial · ABS to June 2026See approvals ↓
3 Building134major projects committed or under construction, 71 of them already on siteForward · completions to 2030+See projects ↓
4 Delivered1,754new addresses verified since the 2021 Census, up 4.3% on the existing baseActual · to June 2026Where it landed ↓
In the 2024-25 financial year the ABS recorded 3,559 dwelling approvals across Melbourne City. Right now, 14 development applications are before the 3 councils covering the area. AreaSearch tracks 134 major projects here that are committed or under construction, the largest being Level Crossing Removal Project at an estimated $18.0bn. On the ground, 1,754 new addresses have been verified since the 2021 Census — growth of 4.3% 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 Melbourne City
What councils and certifiers have formally
permitted — the ABS series, published about four months in arrears.
Approvals are running at 1.93 per 100 existing dwellings a year, well above the Victoria rate of 0.80. Recent approvals are dominated by attached housing — apartments, townhouses and other non-detached dwellings make up 100% of them. The mix being approved closely matches what is already standing — 0% houses against 2% of existing homes. The average approved dwelling is valued at $525,000 in construction cost.
For its size, Melbourne City is adding 1.93 dwellings a year per 100 existing homes — well above the Victoria rate of 0.80 and the national rate of 0.71. That is about 14.4 approvals a year for every 1,000 residents. Building intensity has fallen by about 55% across the published series.
Measured against people rather than housing stock, Melbourne City is approving 19.75 dwellings a year per 1,000 residents — well above the Victoria rate of 7.97. The two rate views differ by household size, which here averages 2.1 people per home. Housing the projection to 2041 would need about 10.54 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 2,814.
How intensively is it building?
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.
Melbourne City1.93
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)2%
Approved, last 5 years0%
Approved, latest year0%
Detached housesApartments, townhouses & other
Approvals mix by year
Share of each year’s approvals.
2022
2023
2024
2025
2024-25
$2.01bn
Residential work approved
2024-25
$3.99bn
Commercial work approved
construction cost
$525,000
Average value per approved dwelling
last two years
52
Residents per approval
Supply & DemandIs Melbourne City Building Enough Homes?
The same approvals, measured against the population
they have to house.
Melbourne City approves about 14.4 new dwellings a year for every 1,000 residents. Since the 2021 Census it has added 45,168 residents but only 1,754 new addresses — about 25.8 extra people for every home built, against an average household of 2.1. On those numbers supply has not kept pace with growth. Housing the population projected for 2041 implies roughly 2,053 new dwellings a year from here, which puts the recent approval rate of 2,814 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 home25.8
Average household size2.1
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)2,814
Implied need to 20412,053
Implied need assumes the average household stays
at today’s 2.1 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. 72
of them carry an AreaSearch analyst assessment — look for the
Analysed marker in the search below.
AreaSearch tracks 3,473 development applications of material scale lodged with councils across Melbourne City, the most recent in April 2026. The biggest categories in the queue by value are mixed-use, commercial and multi-residential.
Estimated value of applications by development type. This is the clearest
single picture of what kind of place Melbourne City is being asked to become. A further 103 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.
Permit issued291
Completed190
Approved72
Application withdrawn54
Application lapsed43
Amended permit issued39
7 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 2,675 applications carry no status in the council feed.
By local government area
Applications on record within each council area that
overlaps Melbourne City. This counts applications inside this
statistical area only — it is not a total for the council.
Melbourne3,449
No current list of the largest applications can be shown for Melbourne City.
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
3,473 applications AreaSearch holds for this area, lodged
between Dec 2011 and Nov 2019, are counted in the figures above.
BuildingFORWARDMajor Projects & Infrastructure in Melbourne City
What is funded and moving — the projects large enough
to change how Melbourne City works, ranked by committed value and how close
they are to delivery.
AreaSearch tracks 134 current projects across Melbourne City. The largest is Level Crossing Removal Project at an estimated $18.0bn, due by 2030. That breaks down as 71 under construction, 30 approved and awaiting a start and 33 still in planning. The pipeline is weighted toward residential development, communities, precincts & urban renewal and transport & logistics.
Under construction$600mby 2026
West Melbourne Waterfront
Mixed-use urban renewal precinct featuring 600 residential dwellings, retail centre, and boutique hotel. Large-scale development transforming the West Melbourne waterfront area with modern residential and…
West Melbourne - Industrial
Under construction$1.70bnby 2028
Elysium Fields
A $1.7 billion biosphere-inspired wellness precinct in Docklands featuring approximately 1,100 to 1,700 dwellings across multiple towers. The project includes a 200-plus room luxury hotel, Australia's largest…
A major urban renewal precinct in Docklands delivering a mix of residential, commercial, and retail spaces. Current active phases include the Collins Wharf waterfront neighbourhood (featuring Ancora, Regatta…
Australian Institute for Infectious Disease (AIID)Under construction · Science & Research · by 2029 · Parkville
$650m
Queen Victoria Market Precinct RenewalUnder construction · Communities, Precincts & Urban Renewal · by 2028 · Melbourne CBD - North
$1.70bn
The Fox: NGV ContemporaryUnder construction · Arts & Culture · by 2028 · Southbank - East
$1.70bn
Melbourne Arts Precinct TransformationUnder construction · Arts & Culture · by 2029 · Southbank - East
$1.70bn
Collins Wharf - Final Three TowersUnder construction · Residential Development · by 2027 · Docklands
$521m
Elgin Towers Carlton Social Housing RedevelopmentUnder construction · Residential Development · by 2028 · Carlton
$500m
Parkville QuarterUnder construction · Residential Development · by 2027 · Parkville
$450m
Younghusband KensingtonUnder construction · Communities, Precincts & Urban Renewal · by 2026 · Kensington (Vic.)
$400m
Greenline ProjectUnder construction · Communities, Precincts & Urban Renewal · by 2028 · Melbourne CBD - West
$316m
Ian Potter State Theatre RefurbishmentUnder construction · Arts & Culture · by 2026 · Southbank - East
$241m
Gurrowa Place - QVM Southern PrecinctUnder construction · Communities, Precincts & Urban Renewal · by 2031 · Melbourne CBD - North
$1.70bn
Level Crossing Removal ProjectUnder construction · Transport & Logistics · by 2030 · Melbourne CBD - West
$18.0bn
119 further projects in
Melbourne City are not listed here.
Combined values on this page exclude
15 records that appear to be
separate stages of a project already counted. Both are still listed
above with their own values.
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 $15.4bn across
7 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 Melbourne City
Development applications around
Melbourne City
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 3,473 applications for Melbourne City, 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 Melbourne City
Applications and major projects plotted where
they are actually proposed, with the
197 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 Melbourne City
Melbourne City covers 13 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
Melbourne City.
Planning AuthoritiesCouncils Covering Melbourne City
Melbourne City spans 3 local government areas — Melbourne, Moonee Valley and Maribyrnong. 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 area
Share of Melbourne City
Applications on record
Register read to
Melbourne
100% of residents
3,449
April 2026
Moonee Valley
0.0% of residents
17
August 2024
Maribyrnong
0.0% of residents
7
June 2018
CompareNearby Development Hubs
The same view of building approvals, applications and
major projects for areas neighbouring Melbourne City.
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
Melbourne City is Statistical Area Level 3 20604 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 13 Statistical Areas Level 2.
It has an estimated 194,769 residents, +30.2% 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
April 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 Melbourne City — common questions
How many new dwellings were approved in Melbourne City?
The ABS recorded 3,559 dwelling approvals across Melbourne City in the 2024-25 financial year, against a five-year average of 2,814 a year.
How many development applications are lodged in Melbourne City?
AreaSearch tracks 3,473 development applications of material scale across Melbourne City — routine minor works such as signage and fencing are not included, so this is not a count of every application lodged, of which 14 remain in assessment. Applications are assessed within the Melbourne, Moonee Valley and Maribyrnong local government areas. The most recent application in our data was lodged in April 2026.
What major projects are planned for Melbourne City?
AreaSearch tracks 134 current major projects in Melbourne City, 71 of them under construction. The largest include West Melbourne Waterfront, Elysium Fields and Victoria Harbour Precinct.
Which council covers Melbourne City?
Melbourne City is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by parts of 3 local government areas — Melbourne, Moonee Valley and Maribyrnong. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.
Is Melbourne City growing faster than the rest of Victoria?
On development approvals, Melbourne City is adding new dwellings faster than Victoria as a whole — 1.93 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 April 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.