Brown Hill flood map & planning overlays

The schematic on this page is a Brown Hill flood map: the mapped flood overlays drawn over the suburb's terrain and street grid, covering about 4% of the suburb. Flood lines vary block to block, so for a specific property use the free interactive map - search any Brown Hill address and it shows the flood, zoning and bushfire mapping on the exact lot boundary.

About 4% of Brown Hill falls within a mapped flood overlay, against the council-wide suburb average of 6%. Flood overlays vary block to block, so whether a particular lot is affected needs a property-level check.

Around 100% of Brown Hill is mapped as bushfire-prone, compared with a Ballarat average of 100%. A bushfire-prone designation can trigger additional building requirements, so check the specific address.

The dominant planning zone in Brown Hill is General Residential Zone (GRZ1), though the suburb also includes Neighbourhood Residential Zone (NRZ1) and Farming Zone (FZ). Zoning sets what you can build and do on a site, and can differ lot by lot.

Brown Hill has 2 heritage-listed places on record. Heritage listing affects what you can alter or demolish, so confirm whether a specific property is listed or near a heritage place.

Across 2,646 surveyed parcels in Brown Hill, the median lot size is about 788 m². There are also 1,272 registered easements mapped in the suburb - an easement can restrict where you can build, so always check the title and overlays for the specific lot.

There is no train station inside Brown Hill itself. The suburb is served by 16 bus stops.

At the 2021 Census Brown Hill had 4,489 usual residents, with a median age of 36 and an average household size of 2.5 people. The wider Ballarat North - Invermay statistical area, which contains Brown Hill, went from 12,250 people in 2001 to 15,204 in 2025, up 24%. ABS publishes no annual population series for individual suburbs, so that trend describes the surrounding area rather than Brown Hill alone.

On the ABS SEIFA 2021 index of relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage (IRSAD), Brown Hill scores 1011 and sits in decile 7 of 10 nationally and decile 6 within Victoria - decile 1 being the most disadvantaged tenth of Australian suburbs and decile 10 the least. The national average score is 1000. SEIFA summarises income, education, occupation and housing across the whole suburb, so it describes the area, not any particular household in it.

Median household income in Brown Hill was $1,757 a week at the 2021 Census, against $1,680 for the typical suburb in Ballarat. Median rent was $290 a week and the median mortgage repayment $1,619 a month. These are 2021 Census figures and have not been indexed to today.

A Brown Hill planning report pulls every overlay - zoning, flood, bushfire, heritage, environmental and noise - that touches a single lot, on live council and state data. The interactive map preview is free; the full PDF report is $9.