Building approvals, live development applications and major projects across the Outback - North and East statistical area — covering Port Augusta, Roxby Downs and Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yunkunytjatjara and 2 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 South Australia 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 35.
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.
dwellings approved a year per 1,000 residents. No population projection is published for this area.
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. 25 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. Outback - North and East is not yet covered evenly. Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yunkunytjatjara (10% of residents) — nothing lodged since February 2024. That council is 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 Outback - North and East is being asked to become. Councils in South Australia do not publish an estimated cost of works in their planning feeds, so applications here are counted rather than valued. A further 3 applications sit across 2 smaller categories, too few to plot.
As reported by the council. Highlighted rows are applications still in assessment.
41 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.
Applications on record within each council area that overlaps Outback - North and East. This counts applications inside this statistical area only — it is not a total for the council.
By the number of dwellings proposed, as lodged. Figures are the applicant’s own and are not verified by AreaSearch.
What is funded and moving — the projects large enough to change how Outback - North and East works, ranked by committed value and how close they are to delivery.
A series of growth-enabling underground mining and processing projects representing an A$840 million investment by BHP at Olympic Dam in South Australia. Key elements include: a new underground access decline…
Integrated cobalt mine and processing project near Broken Hill intended to produce high purity cobalt sulphate for lithium-ion battery supply chains and elemental sulphur for fertiliser inputs. The NSW State…
BHP Olympic Dam Corporation Pty Ltd proposes to expand smelting and refining activities at Olympic Dam as part of Copper South Australia growth. The project would lift smelting and refinery capacity from about…
17 further projects in Outback - North and East 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.
Beyond 2030: a further $6.30bn across 1 project 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.
Development applications around Outback - North and East
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.
Applications and major projects plotted where they are actually proposed, with the 41 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.
Approvals per 100 existing homes in 2025-26, by statistical area, with the Outback - North and East figure marked. Ranked rather than stacked: rates cannot be added together.
Approvals per 1,000 residents in 2025-26, by statistical area, against each area’s own estimated resident population, with the Outback - North and East figure marked. A small area building hard is invisible in the totals view and obvious here.
Dwelling approvals each financial year, split by the statistical area they fell in. Each column totals the whole Outback - North and East figure from the approvals chart above — SA2s nest exactly inside an SA3, so the two always reconcile. Tap or click an area in the legend to hide it and compare the rest. The smallest 1 areas are grouped as one band.
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 Outback - North and East.
| Local government area | Share of Outback - North and East | Applications on record | Register read to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Port Augusta | 59% of residents | 155 | July 2026 |
| Roxby Downs | 17% of residents | 17 | July 2026 |
| Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yunkunytjatjara | 10% of residents | 4 | February 2024 |
| Flinders Ranges | 7.0% of residents | 43 | June 2026 |
| Coober Pedy | 6.7% of residents | 9 | December 2025 |
The same view of building approvals, applications and major projects for areas neighbouring Outback - North and East.
Outback - North and East is Statistical Area Level 3 40602 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 6 Statistical Areas Level 2. It has an estimated 26,613 residents, +4.1% since the 2021 Census.
| Measure | Source | To |
|---|---|---|
| Dwelling approvals, five-year average | ABS / AreaSearch | July 2026 |
| House share of approvals | ABS / AreaSearch | July 2026 |
| Residents per approval | ABS / AreaSearch | July 2026 |
| Value per approved dwelling | ABS / AreaSearch | July 2026 |
| Commercial work approved | ABS / AreaSearch | July 2026 |
| Verified new addresses since the Census | Address register / AreaSearch | August 2026 |
| Development applications | Council planning portals | July 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 20 dwelling approvals across Outback - North and East in the 2025-26 financial year, against a five-year average of 35 a year.
AreaSearch tracks 264 development applications of material scale across Outback - North and East — routine minor works such as signage and fencing are not included, so this is not a count of every application lodged, of which 54 remain in assessment. Applications are assessed within the Port Augusta, Roxby Downs and Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yunkunytjatjara local government areas. The most recent application in our data was lodged in July 2026.
AreaSearch tracks 32 current major projects in Outback - North and East, 11 of them under construction. The largest include Olympic Dam Underground Growth Projects, Broken Hill Cobalt Project and Olympic Dam Smelter Refinery Expansion Project.
Outback - North and East is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by parts of 5 local government areas — Port Augusta, Roxby Downs, Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yunkunytjatjara, Flinders Ranges and Coober Pedy. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.
On development approvals, Outback - North and East is adding new dwellings more slowly than South Australia as a whole — 0.06 approvals per 100 existing dwellings a year against the state figure of 0.78.
ABS building approvals are published with a lag of roughly four months; this page carries the series to August 2026. Development applications are collected from council planning portals and refresh continuously, with the most recent application here lodged in July 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.