Growth in Onkaparinga

Onkaparinga is the largest council by population in South Australia. In 2021 council’s population was 175,204 residents living in 518 square kilometres. At 2025 Onkaparinga had grown by over 8,000 people to reach an estimated 184,827 people.

Housing Supply

Land supply for housing is not simply a matter of how much land physically exists, but rather the more meaningful consideration of how much land is zoned (or able to be zoned), serviced, and economically viable to build on with each of these factors substantially influencing supply.

Most of the population live in established suburbs and evolving residential estates, while others live in coastal communities, country towns or farms in rural areas. Rural land is used mainly for viticulture, horticulture, forestry, cropping and grazing.

The McLaren Vale Character Preservation District (CPD) covers 75% of Onkaparinga’s land area, much of which is in the Rural zone, Hills Face zone or Conservation zone. The CPD functions as an urban growth boundary to prevent further spread of housing into these areas.

Population growth based on state government projections and ABS data and trends, indicates that Onkaparinga will continue to grow, meaning we need more homes, and more jobs – this means we need to know what land is available for housing and employment. 

To accommodate Onkaparinga's anticipated population growth, a substantial portion of future housing will occur in the following greenfield developments.

Employment Land

Employment land is concentrated areas where people are employed (on a full or part-time basis) in a wide range of employment industries including construction, wholesaling, communication, manufacturing and retailing with the focus industrial estates.

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With increased population comes a need for more jobs and businesses and we need to plan for employment land to accommodate this demand growth, however the existing employment land across Onkaparinga's key precincts are under significant pressure.

The aggregate vacancy rate across all precincts has fallen from 13% in 2015 to approximately 4% in 2024.

Approximately 7 hectares per annum is required - with only 29 hectares of vacant employment land remaining - 24 hectares in Lonsdale and 5 hectares across Seaford and Aldinga, and Hackham being effectively full at 1% vacancy means the market is extremely tight.

Industrial jobs in Onkaparinga are projected to grow from approximately 11,700 in 2021 to 14,500 by 2051.  Based on growth scenarios, an anticipated demand for up to 115 additional hectares of employment land is needed. Accounting for supply already in the pipeline, a mean shortfall of 75 hectares is projected by 2051.

For the city to maintain adequate supply through to 2051 and beyond, new employment land needs to be identified and activated.

Whilst Onkaparinga has employment land for industry spread across the city, much of it focused in the north – however, consideration needs to be had to the distribution and location of employment land to serve where the population growth is happening, predominantly in the southern portion of Onkaparinga.

To accommodate future employment land within the preferred locations for it to serve the region’s growth areas, as well as existing local communities, needs careful consideration.

Any new employment land places additional pressure on council infrastructure such as roads and stormwater infrastructure, but it also provides opportunities to plan well and look to increase landscaping and tree planting to achieve our urban green cover target.

With demand for employment land, there is also the opportunities to encourage and support the creation of new industries such as clean tech, smart tech, green tech, innovation hubs.