City of Casey leads the way with dwelling approvals
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Data provided through the ABS gives insight into which councils are more, or in some cases less, inclined to approval new dwellings across Victoria.
The following information on dwelling approvals is based on data collated or the financial year so far and represents July 2023 up to January 2024. The number of approvals for every 1000 residents is based on the estimated population reflecting data that was collected by the ABS in 2022 and subsequently released in 2023. It is further worth recognising that the municipalities are demographically diverse, ranging from dense inner-city localities to sparse rural communities across regional and rural Victoria.
The councils with the highest levels of approvals up to January 2024 were Casey (2,947 approvals), Melton (2,524 approvals), Wyndham (2,165 approvals), Greater Geelong (1,875 approvals), and Whittlesea (1,616 approvals). These local government areas are all located within the outer suburbs of Melbourne barring Geelong, with the remaining ascending municipalities being in the southeast, west, southwest, and northern suburbs respectively. Most of these new builds were houses, which is likely due to the wider availability of large plots of land farther from the city.
When looking at the highest level of approvals per 1,000 residents, the highest approvals, in order, were Melton (13.07), Port Philip (11.6), Mitchell (10.07), Melbourne (9.3), and Casey (7.78). Barring Casey, these were all at least double the statewide average of 4.49 approvals per 1,000 people. Meanwhile, the lowest levels of approvals were amongst the most rural areas of the state. Amongst the five municipalities with the lowest levels of approvals, four out of five were in the northwest of the state in the Wimmera Southern Mallee region. Those four are West Wimmera (4 approvals), Hindmarsh (5 approvals), Yarriambiack (7 approvals) and Northern Grampians (9 approvals), all municipalities that are for the chiefly situated closer to the South Australian border than they are to Greater Melbourne. The exception to the trend is Loddon with a total of 10 approvals, being situated closer to the direct north of the state. All these municipalities have populations of less than 12,000 residents, with less than 1.2 approvals per 1,000 residents.
Out of the total number of dwellings approved across Victoria over the first seven months of FY2024, 61.5% were houses with the other 38.5% being units. Out of these, there are diverse ratios across municipalities between whether house or unit approvals are more prevalent. The five municipalities with the highest percentage of units receiving approval were all inner-city, being located in Melbourne (99.9%), Port Philip (98.8%), Stonnington (93.7%), Yarra (92.8%), and Maribyrnong (92.3%). Meanwhile, a total of sixteen municipalities, all of which were located outside of metropolitan Melbourne, didn’t grant any approval for units to be built. It is worth noting that each of these municipalities that lacked a single unit approval for the seven months covered also recorded less than 100 approvals in total, leaving substantial room for both increased unit approvals and dwelling approvals more broadly. Interestingly, when comparing approvals overall, Maribyrnong has approved three times more new dwellings than Maroondah. This is despite Maroondah having roughly 32% more people than Maribyrnong.
This supports the need for further coordination between state governments and councils to encourage sharing the distribution of approvals.