Building approvals, live development applications and major projects across the
Southern Highlands statistical area — covering Wingecarribee and Kiama.
SA3 11402Rest of NSW54,691 residents6 statistical areas
The PipelineDevelopment Pipeline in Southern Highlands
1 Proposed234applications in assessmentLeading · to September 2026See applications ↓
2 Approved331dwellings approved in 2025-26, or 0.57 per 100 existing dwellings a yearOfficial · ABS to August 2026See approvals ↓
3 Building22major projects committed or under construction, 9 of them already on siteForward · completions to 2030+See projects ↓
4 Delivered1,768new addresses verified since the 2021 Census, up 6.7% on the existing baseActual · to August 2026Where it landed ↓
In the 2025-26 financial year the ABS recorded 331 dwelling approvals across Southern Highlands. Right now, 234 development applications are before the 2 councils covering the area. AreaSearch tracks 22 major projects here that are committed or under construction, the largest being Bowral South New Living Area (NLA) at an estimated $800m. On the ground, 1,768 new addresses have been verified since the 2021 Census — growth of 6.7% 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 Southern Highlands
What councils and certifiers have formally
permitted — the ABS series, published about four months in arrears.
Approvals are running at 0.57 per 100 existing dwellings a year, in line with the New South Wales rate of 0.59. Development here remains overwhelmingly detached: houses account for 78% of recent approvals. Detached houses make up 91% of the homes already standing here but only 79% of the past five years of approvals, so the area is densifying. The average approved dwelling is valued at $555,000 in construction cost.
For its size, Southern Highlands is adding 0.57 dwellings a year per 100 existing homes — in line with the New South Wales rate of 0.59 and the national rate of 0.71. That is about 5.9 approvals a year for every 1,000 residents. Building intensity has fallen by about 23% across the published series.
Measured against people rather than housing stock, Southern Highlands is approving 6.14 dwellings a year per 1,000 residents — in line with the New South Wales rate of 6.06. The two rate views differ by household size, which here averages 2.6 people per home. Housing the projection to 2041 would need about 5.67 per 1,000 residents a year.
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing
homes, with New South Wales 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 323.
How intensively is it building?
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.
Southern Highlands0.57
New South Wales0.59
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)91%
Approved, last 5 years79%
Approved, latest year78%
Detached housesApartments, townhouses & other
Approvals mix by year
Share of each year’s approvals.
2023
2024
2025
2026
2025-26
$191m
Residential work approved
2025-26
$62.2m
Commercial work approved
construction cost
$555,000
Average value per approved dwelling
last two years
175
Residents per approval
Supply & DemandIs Southern Highlands Building Enough Homes?
The same approvals, measured against the population
they have to house.
Southern Highlands approves about 5.9 new dwellings a year for every 1,000 residents. Since the 2021 Census it has added 2,013 residents and 1,768 new addresses — about 1.1 extra people per home built, below the 2.6-person average household, so building has run ahead of population growth. Housing the population projected for 2041 implies roughly 310 new dwellings a year from here, which puts the recent approval rate of 323 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 home1.1
Average household size2.6
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)323
Implied need to 2041310
Implied need assumes the average household stays
at today’s 2.6 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. 31
of them carry an AreaSearch analyst assessment — look for the
Analysed marker in the search below.
AreaSearch tracks 1,338 development applications of material scale lodged with councils across Southern Highlands, the most recent in September 2026. 234 of them are still in assessment. The biggest categories in the queue by value are aged care, commercial and mixed-use. Live applications account for about 67 proposed dwellings.
Estimated value of applications by development type. This is the clearest
single picture of what kind of place Southern Highlands is being asked to become. A further 6 applications sit across
1 smaller category,
too few to plot.
Where the applications stand
As reported by the council. Highlighted rows are
applications still in assessment.
Determined445
Approved422
Under Assessment257
Additional Information Requested61
Withdrawn37
Refused31
102 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 Southern Highlands. This counts applications inside this
statistical area only — it is not a total for the council.
Wingecarribee1,133
Wingecarribee Shire Council203
Recent applications in Southern Highlands
By estimated cost of works, as lodged. Estimates are the applicant’s own figures and are not verified by AreaSearch.
Modification in the process of PreLodgement ReviewBowral · Under Assessment · lodged Feb 2026 · 58 dwellings
Alterations & additions to existing warehouse & distribution centre with associated landscaping works, carpark & TorrensTitle SubdivisionMoss Vale - Berrima · Additional Information Requested · lodged Aug 2025
$24.0m
Demolition of all structures, construction of a seniors housing in a form of nine (9) independent living units and tree removalBowral · Under Assessment · lodged Mar 2025 · 9 dwellings
$4.4m
Demolition, Alterations or additions to an existing building or structure, Erection of a new structure, Centre-based child care, Hours of operation…Mittagong · Additional Information Requested · lodged Nov 2025
$2.8m
Commercial / Office developmentRobertson - Fitzroy Falls · Additional Information Requested · lodged Dec 2025
$2.7m
Construction of Retail / Commercial BuildingMittagong · Additional Information Requested · lodged May 2025
$2.4m
Alterations or additions to an existing building or structure, Centre-based child careHill Top - Colo Vale · Under Assessment · lodged Oct 2025
$590k
BuildingFORWARDMajor Projects & Infrastructure in Southern Highlands
What is funded and moving — the projects large enough
to change how Southern Highlands works, ranked by committed value and how close
they are to delivery.
AreaSearch tracks 22 current projects across Southern Highlands. The largest is Bowral South New Living Area (NLA) at an estimated $800m, due by 2030. That breaks down as 9 under construction, 3 approved and awaiting a start and 10 still in planning. The pipeline is weighted toward environmental & disaster management, communities, precincts & urban renewal and transport & logistics.
Under construction$585mby 2028
Ashbourne Moss Vale
A master-planned residential community in Moss Vale, featuring over 1,200 prestige homes and land lots, more than 20% green open spaces, recreational areas, walking and cycling trails, and a village hub with…
An upgrade to the Bowral Sewage Treatment Plant using advanced technology to improve wastewater treatment and increase capacity for population growth up to 21,000 by 2046. The 60.5 million AUD project includes…
Bowral and District Hospital Redevelopment - Stage 2
The $55 million Bowral and District Hospital Redevelopment Stage 2 refurbishes existing campus infrastructure to consolidate modern outpatient, allied health, and clinical support facilities. Delivered by…
7 further projects in
Southern Highlands 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 $150m 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.
Approvals PipelineDevelopment Applications in Southern Highlands
Development applications around
Southern Highlands
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 pipelineStatus, 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.
ProfessionalPRODevelopment Map for Southern Highlands
Applications and major projects plotted where
they are actually proposed, with the
29 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 Southern Highlands
Southern Highlands covers 6 statistical areas, and development is not spread evenly between them. Moss Vale - Berrima alone accounted for 37% of the area’s dwelling approvals in 2025-26. The top three between them took 75% of the total.
Approvals per 100 existing homes in
2025-26, by statistical area, with the Southern Highlands 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
Southern Highlands 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 Southern Highlands 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.
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
Southern Highlands.
Southern Highlands spans 2 local government areas — Wingecarribee and Kiama. 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 Southern Highlands
Applications on record
Register read to
Wingecarribee
100% of residents
1,336
September 2026
Kiama
0.2% of residents
1
June 2026
CompareNearby Development Hubs
The same view of building approvals, applications and
major projects for areas neighbouring Southern Highlands.
Data & MethodSources & Method for Southern Highlands
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 August 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
Southern Highlands is Statistical Area Level 3 11402 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 6 Statistical Areas Level 2.
It has an estimated 54,691 residents, +3.8% since the 2021 Census.
Currency
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
September 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 Southern Highlands — common questions
How many new dwellings were approved in Southern Highlands?
The ABS recorded 331 dwelling approvals across Southern Highlands in the 2025-26 financial year, against a five-year average of 323 a year.
How many development applications are lodged in Southern Highlands?
AreaSearch tracks 1,338 development applications of material scale across Southern Highlands — routine minor works such as signage and fencing are not included, so this is not a count of every application lodged, of which 234 remain in assessment. Applications are assessed within the Wingecarribee and Kiama local government areas. The most recent application in our data was lodged in September 2026.
What major projects are planned for Southern Highlands?
AreaSearch tracks 22 current major projects in Southern Highlands, 9 of them under construction. The largest include Ashbourne Moss Vale, Bowral Sewage Treatment Plant Upgrade and Bowral and District Hospital Redevelopment - Stage 2.
Which council covers Southern Highlands?
Southern Highlands is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by parts of 2 local government areas — Wingecarribee and Kiama. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.
Is Southern Highlands growing faster than the rest of New South Wales?
On development approvals, Southern Highlands is adding new dwellings at about the same rate as New South Wales as a whole — 0.57 approvals per 100 existing dwellings a year against the state figure of 0.59.
How current is this development data?
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 September 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.