Howqua Hills flood map & planning overlays
Howqua Hills is conservation land with 9 heritage places and total bushfire cover.
Free map preview, then PDF reports from $9 - about the price of an iced latte on a public holiday.
A planning-constraint profile of Howqua Hills
(Mansfield, VIC) - 115.65 km², mapped from live council and
state overlay data. This suburb is highly constrained.
Profile updated 24 October 2026.
Constraint readout
115.65 km² - this suburb is highly constrained by planning overlays.
Elevation hillshade with street names, clipped to Howqua Hills's boundary, with the flood, bushfire and environmental overlays drawn on top. Magenta is where aircraft were observed in the sampled period, brightest below 3,000 ft.
Nearby suburbs, nearest first
Aircraft noise and flight paths over Howqua Hills
The ANEF contour is a published planning forecast and observed overflight is what a sampled tracking feed recorded - neither describes any individual property.
Observed overflight - sampled 4 Sep to 24 Oct 2026
Night movements: not established - night is sampled as often as day, but too few night flights have been seen here to conclude either way.
How this is measured
Traffic is sampled rather than watched continuously, so every figure is a floor: aircraft not captured between samples are not represented. Rates are per 500 m square - the busiest square in the suburb, not a count of flights over the suburb - and a square is only rated where enough traffic was seen to measure it. Altitudes are above mean sea level. Flight paths change with runway use, weather, season and airspace design. This is a record of observed traffic; it is not a noise contour and not a planning control.
Howqua Hills at a glance
How Howqua Hills is zoned
Selling in Howqua Hills? The zoning and planning overlays on this page are the controls a Section 32 vendor statement discloses.
Across its 115.65 km², Howqua Hills is highly constrained by planning overlays. Flood mapping covers the suburb and none of it falls within a mapped flood overlay, and 100% is flagged bushfire-prone. There are 9 heritage-listed sites on record, and the dominant land-use zone is Public Conservation and Resource Zone (PCRZ). The median lot measures about 3,148 m² across 123 parcels.
Who lives in Howqua Hills
Census 2021 figures published by the ABS for the Howqua Hills suburb boundary itself, not a wider region.
Population trend, 2001 to 2025
Estimated resident population of Mansfield (Vic.), the wider ABS statistical area containing Howqua Hills. There is no annual population series published at suburb level, so this describes the surrounding area rather than Howqua Hills itself.
6,907 in 2001 to 11,324 in 2025, up 64%.
Source: ABS Census 2021 and SEIFA 2021 (Suburbs and Localities), Regional Population (SA2), CC BY 4.0. Small counts are randomly adjusted by the ABS.
Howqua Hills data sources and coverage
“Not mapped” means we hold no source layer for this suburb - never an all-clear.
| Dataset | Coverage | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Flood mapping | Mapped | Vicmap Planning and Victorian Government spatial services |
| Bushfire-prone mapping | Mapped | Vicmap Planning and Victorian Government spatial services |
| Zoning | Mapped | Vicmap Planning and Victorian Government spatial services |
| Heritage and environment | Mapped where published | Vicmap Planning and Victorian Government spatial services |
| Aircraft noise contours (ANEF) | Not held | Vicmap Planning and Victorian Government spatial services, Defence |
| Observed flight paths | Observed | adsb.lol, under the Open Database License |
| Demographics | Available | Australian Bureau of Statistics (2021 Census and SEIFA) |
Profile last materially updated 24 October 2026. See the methodology and full source list. Source data changes over time and critical decisions should be checked with the responsible authority.
Check a specific Howqua Hills address
See exactly which overlays touch a single property - the interactive map is free. Need it on paper? A full planning PDF is just $9.
See what's in the $9 report →The report's Aircraft Overflight page narrows that to the address itself: how many aircraft a day, how low, and at what heights.
Building or pricing a slab? The $119 geotechnical desktop report covers geology, soils, bores and the indicative soil reactivity range to expect for a Howqua Hills lot.
Howqua Hills planning - frequently asked
Is Howqua Hills flood-prone?
Flood mapping covers Howqua Hills and less than 1% of the suburb falls within a mapped flood overlay (the council-wide suburb average is 7%).
Is Howqua Hills bushfire-prone?
Around 100% of Howqua Hills is mapped as bushfire-prone, compared with a Mansfield average of 99%.
Is Howqua Hills under a flight path?
Aircraft were observed over about 6% of Howqua Hills in the period sampled, but only above 3,000 ft - the lowest measured was 2,500 ft. Traffic is sampled rather than watched continuously and flight paths change with runway use, weather and season; the ANEF contour is the planning instrument.
What is the zoning in Howqua Hills?
The dominant planning zone in Howqua Hills is Public Conservation and Resource Zone (PCRZ), though the suburb also includes Farming Zone (FZ).
Does Howqua Hills have heritage-listed places?
Howqua Hills has 9 heritage-listed places on record.
What is the typical lot size in Howqua Hills?
Across 123 surveyed parcels in Howqua Hills, the median lot size is about 3,148 m².
Compare nearby suburbs
| Nearby suburb | Distance | Flood mapped | Bushfire-prone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sawmill Settlement | 9.0 km | <1% | 100% |
| Boorolite | 9.1 km | 4% | 100% |
| Mirimbah | 11.4 km | <1% | 100% |
| Howqua | 11.7 km | 4% | 100% |
| Merrijig (Mount Buller) | 12.0 km | 1% | 100% |
| Mount Buller | 12.9 km | 0% | 100% |
| Macs Cove | 14.2 km | 2% | 100% |
| Delatite | 14.4 km | 25% | 100% |
| Piries | 15.0 km | 14% | 100% |
| Howqua Inlet | 16.0 km | 2% | 100% |