Development in Palmerston

NT

Building approvals, live development applications and major projects across the Palmerston statistical area — covering Palmerston.

SA3 70104 Greater Darwin 43,012 residents 9 statistical areas
Approved · FY25 248 dwellings approved
vs 5-yr average 163 average approvals a year
In the queue 186 applications on record
Major projects none currently tracked
Data Sources ABSCouncil planning portals ABS to June 2026 · Refreshed ABS QuickStats SA3 70104 How we calculate this

The Pipeline Development Pipeline in Palmerston

1 Proposed 186 applications on record, none of them currently open Leading See applications ↓
2 Approved 248 dwellings approved in 2024-25, or 0.51 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 512 new addresses verified since the 2021 Census, up 3.4% on the existing base Actual · to June 2026 Where it landed ↓
In the 2024-25 financial year the ABS recorded 248 dwelling approvals across Palmerston. On the ground, 512 new addresses have been verified since the 2021 Census — growth of 3.4% 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 Palmerston

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

Approvals are running at 0.51 per 100 existing dwellings a year, well above the Northern Territory rate of 0.26. The mix is genuinely split — 70% of recent approvals are detached houses and 30% are attached or higher-density dwellings. That is a clear shift toward density — the five-year average is 81% houses. The mix being approved closely matches what is already standing — 81% houses against 76% of existing homes. The average approved dwelling is valued at $431,000 in construction cost.

Dwelling units approved each financial year. The dashed line is the five-year average of 163.

How intensively is it building?

Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.

Palmerston 0.51
Northern Territory 0.26
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) 76%
Approved, last 5 years 81%
Approved, latest year 70%
Detached houses Apartments, townhouses & other

Approvals mix by year

Share of each year’s approvals.

2022
2023
2024
2025
2024-25
$115m
Residential work approved
2024-25
$78.4m
Commercial work approved
construction cost
$431,000
Average value per approved dwelling
last two years
200
Residents per approval

Supply & Demand Is Palmerston Building Enough Homes?

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

Palmerston approves about 3.8 new dwellings a year for every 1,000 residents. Since the 2021 Census it has added 5,836 residents but only 512 new addresses — about 11.4 extra people for every home built, against an average household of 3.0. On those numbers supply has not kept pace with growth. Housing the population projected for 2041 implies roughly 144 new dwellings a year from here, which puts the recent approval rate of 163 a year about level with 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 11.4
Average household size 3.0

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) 163
Implied need to 2041 144

Implied need assumes the average household stays at today’s 3.0 people. Approvals are not completions, and not every approval is built.

ProposedLEADING Development Applications in Palmerston

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

AreaSearch tracks 186 development applications of material scale lodged with council across Palmerston. The most common types in the queue are retail, multi-residential and commercial.
Coverage

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 Palmerston 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.

Archived 184
On exhibition 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.

By local government area

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

Palmerston 186

Recent applications in Palmerston

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

Unit title subdivision to create 27 unit titles and common property for an approved 3-storey building. Palmerston - South · Archived
27 dwellings
Unit title subdivision of 15 existing attached dwellings. Rosebery - Bellamack · Archived
15 dwellings
Subdivision to create a unit title scheme for 12 dwellings currently under construction. Palmerston - South · Archived
12 dwellings
Childcare centre with 108 places and 11 x 3-bedroom dwellings across single-storey buildings. Palmerston - South · Archived
11 dwellings
Subdivision of four semi-detached duplexes into an eight-unit title scheme. Palmerston - South · Archived
8 dwellings
Unit Title Scheme Subdivision creating 6 residential lots and 1 common property lot. Palmerston - South · Archived
6 dwellings
Subdivision of Lot 9907 for a six-unit title scheme. Durack - Marlow Lagoon · Archived
6 dwellings
Subdivision of an existing commercial lot into 6 units for retail and childcare uses. Palmerston - South · Archived
Approvals Pipeline Development Applications in Palmerston

Development applications around Palmerston

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 Palmerston

Applications and major projects plotted where they are actually proposed. To search every application on record rather than this sample, use the section above.

Distribution Where Development Is Happening in Palmerston

Palmerston covers 9 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 Palmerston.

Rosebery - Bellamack area profile

No separate approvals series published
10 applications on record
Build a map

Palmerston - South area profile

No separate approvals series published
42 applications on record · 499 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Durack - Marlow Lagoon area profile

No separate approvals series published
32 applications on record
Build a map

Palmerston - North area profile

No separate approvals series published
83 applications on record
Build a map

Woodroffe area profile

No separate approvals series published
3 applications on record
Build a map

Gray area profile

No separate approvals series published
2 applications on record
Build a map

Bakewell area profile

No separate approvals series published
3 applications on record
Build a map

Moulden area profile

No separate approvals series published
5 applications on record
Build a map

Driver area profile

No separate approvals series published
6 applications on record
Build a map

Planning Authorities Councils Covering Palmerston

Development in Palmerston is assessed within the Palmerston 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.

Compare Nearby Development Hubs

The same view of building approvals, applications and major projects for areas neighbouring Palmerston.

Data & Method Sources & Method for Palmerston

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

Palmerston is Statistical Area Level 3 70104 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 9 Statistical Areas Level 2. It has an estimated 43,012 residents, +15.7% 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 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 Palmerston — common questions

How many new dwellings were approved in Palmerston?

The ABS recorded 248 dwelling approvals across Palmerston in the 2024-25 financial year, against a five-year average of 163 a year.

How many development applications are lodged in Palmerston?

AreaSearch tracks 186 development applications of material scale across Palmerston — 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 Palmerston local government area.

Which council covers Palmerston?

Palmerston is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by the Palmerston local government area. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.

Is Palmerston growing faster than the rest of Northern Territory?

On development approvals, Palmerston is adding new dwellings faster than Northern Territory as a whole — 0.51 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.