Established · NW Calgary

Highwood

Small inner north community of detached homes near Edmonton Trail

Families
Value-seekers
Commuters

At a glance

A 1950s inner north community of about 2,300 residents, mostly detached houses. About 74% of homes are detached, 59% of households own, and the median assessed value is about $656K. Police data shows crime well above the city median and disorder calls above it, per resident.

Median assessed home: $656K
Residents: 2,460
Households renting: 41%
Permits per year: 44

What the numbers mean

The median assessed home is $656K, 14% above the Calgary median of $575K.
That median blends very different homes. By type, the medians are detached $658K, semi-detached or row $526K (city: $718K detached, $478K semi or row, $295K condo). Compare like with like.
41% of households rent, above the 34% city-wide.
74% of homes are single-family houses, versus 55% city-wide.
Building activity is in line with the city as a whole, at about 44 permits a year.

Who lives here

Share of residents by age, 2021 census.

0-1419%

15-197%

20-245%

25-3413%

35-4417%

45-5410%

55-6417%

65-746%

75+6%

Homes

Share of homes by type, 2019 civic census.

Single-family74%

Duplex8%

Townhouse2%

Apartment2%

Multi-plex & converted15%

Getting to work¹

Drive, no traffic Bike

Downtown13 min drive · 33 min bike
Foothills and UCalgary12 min drive · 29 min bike
Airport13 min drive · 28 min bike
SE industrial18 min drive · 1 h 6 min bike

Transit times aren't included yet. Check Calgary Transit's trip planner for a weekday 8:00 a.m. trip.

Off-leash dog parks²

No off-leash area inside the community. 2 more areas within 150 m of the boundary.

Daily errands on foot³

Places within the community or a 5-minute walk of its edge, compared with the typical community in Calgary.

Supermarkets: 0
Cafés and bakeries: 3
Pharmacies and clinics: 3
Playgrounds and dog parks: 10

Assessed value by home type⁴

The overall median mixes house types, so it can match none of them. Split by type, 2026 assessments:

Detached house: $658K
Semi-detached or row: $526K
Condo or apartment: —

Estimated property tax⁵

What owning here costs each year in property tax at the median assessed value of each home type. Renters don’t pay it directly, but landlords pass it on.

Detached house: $4,380 a year
Semi-detached or row: $3,500 a year

Upfront closing costs⁶

Alberta has no land transfer tax; the Land Titles transfer fee is about 0.1% of the price. Government fees at the median home price:

Land title transfer fee: $710

Household income and housing costs⁷

What households here earn and how much of it housing takes, 2021 Census.

Median household income: $93,300
Spend 30%+ on housing: 21%
Owners' monthly cost: $1,460
Tenants' monthly cost: $1,390

Typical apartment rent nearby⁸

Highwood sits in CMHC's Northwest survey zone. October 2025 average rent of purpose-built rental apartments in that zone:

Studio: $1,501
1 bedroom: $1,646
2 bedroom: $1,816
3 bedroom or more: $2,216

Flood and airport noise⁹

None of Highwood lies inside the City's regulatory flood map.

Highwood is outside the airport's noise forecast contours (NEF 25 and above).

Schools¹⁰

3 schools are located in Highwood.
There is no high school inside the community. From the middle of Highwood, the nearest high school is about 0.9 km away.
Enrolment is steady, up 14% since 2019-20 across 2 schools.

HighwoodElementary · Calgary Board of Education · 343 students
Northwest Elementary CampusElementary · Charter school
Colonel IrvineElementary and junior high · Calgary Board of Education · 765 students

The school nearest the house may not be the school your child is assigned to. Boards assign a designated school by street address, and a community can be split across several, or have none inside its boundary. The boards don’t publish these attendance areas as open data, only an address lookup: use the CBE Find a School tool (including French Immersion and IB) or contact the Calgary Catholic School District with the exact address before you rent or buy. Capped schools can also place new students elsewhere.

We don’t rate schools: test results are not open data, so a school’s quality is something to ask about on a visit.

LRT access¹¹

Highwood is about 2.6 km from the nearest LRT station, University (Red Line). Most people here drive or take a bus to reach the train.

How it's changing

Building permits issued each year, a leading signal of new homes and renovations.

412021

422022

432023

382024

562025

352026*

*2026 is year to date.

What the building permits are for¹²

Teardowns and infill: 3.6 a year
Secondary suites: 2.8 a year
Home improvements: 8.2 a year

Safety¹³

Reported incidents in the last 12 months (October 2025 to September 2026), per 1,000 residents, compared with the median of 177 Calgary communities.

Reported crime: 23.6
Disorder calls: 50.4
Violent crime: 5.7
Property crime: 17.9

Reported crime runs about 1.7× the median Calgary community: 23.6 incidents per 1,000 residents a year, versus 13.5.
The most common reported crime is theft from vehicles, 28% of the total. 76% of incidents are property crime.
Crime has been roughly flat since 2020, at about 75 reported incidents a year.
So far in 2026 (January to September) there have been 36 incidents, 36% fewer than the same months of 2025.
Busy main streets, transit and nightlife bring in visitors, and incidents are counted where they happen, not where people live.

Crime per 1,000 residents

This area23.6

Median area13.5

Calgary overall16.9

Disorder calls per 1,000 residents

This area50.4

Median area32.1

Calgary overall54.3

What gets reported

Top crime types in the rate, same period.

Theft from vehicles28%

Assault24%

Vehicle theft14%

Break-in: garage or shed10%

Other violence10%

Disorder calls

Most common non-criminal calls to police.

Mental Health Concern19%

Disturbance16%

Suspicious Person15%

Suspicious Vehicle13%

Reported crime by year

722020

1002021

1132022

762023

622024

782025

362026*

*2026 is year to date.

Sources and notes

Source: road-network routing from OpenStreetMap-based OSRM servers (car and bike profiles), pulled October 2026, from the centre of the community's boundary (City of Calgary) to each destination. Drive times assume free-flowing roads with no traffic, so weekday rush hour can take noticeably longer; bike times follow cycling-suitable roads and paths at an average speed and ignore hills and winter. Transit times are not included because we don't yet have a schedule-based calculation. Destinations: Downtown (Stephen Avenue); Foothills Medical Centre and University of Calgary; Calgary International Airport; Southeast industrial (Barlow Trail and 50 Ave SE). ↩
Source: City of Calgary, Parks Off Leash Areas, matched to the community boundary by location, pulled October 2026. "Inside" means the area overlaps the community; "nearby" means within 150 m. Fencing comes from the City's fencing note: fully fenced, fenced in part (some sides or sections), or no fencing recorded. The City's shared park names sometimes cover several communities. ↩
Source: OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), counted October 19, 2026. Counts places inside the community or within 400 m (about a 5-minute walk) of its edge, in a straight line. Volunteers map OpenStreetMap, so some places may be missing and counts are a guide, not a census. Supermarkets are tagged shop=supermarket; cafés amenity=cafe and shop=bakery; pharmacies and clinics amenity=pharmacy and amenity=clinic; playgrounds and dog parks leisure=playground and leisure=dog_park. Medians are across the communities in this guide. ↩
Source: Current Year Property Assessments. Assessments estimate market value on July 1, 2025, so they trail current sale prices, and they are not MLS benchmark prices (CREB benchmarks are not open data). Types are grouped from the City's property-use codes; see About. ↩
Source: City of Calgary 2026 tax rates. 2026 residential rate 0.665% of assessed value (City 0.38906% + provincial education 0.27593%), applied to this community's median assessment for each home type. Homeowners pay tax on the assessed value, not the sale price. Excludes utility bills, local improvement charges, grants and credits, and anything above or below the median. ↩
Source: Government of Alberta, Land Titles and Surveys fee schedule. 2026 rules, applied to this community's median assessment. A mortgage adds its own registration fee on the loan amount on the same $50 + $5 per $5,000 scale. Legal fees, title insurance, inspection and adjustments are extra. ↩
Source: Statistics Canada, 2021 Census Profile (98-401-X2021006), dissemination areas. Income is median total household income in 2020 (before tax). The share spending 30% or more of income on shelter combines owner and tenant households; 30% is the standard affordability line. Shelter costs for owners include mortgage payments, property tax and utilities; for tenants, rent and utilities. 2021 Census, a 25% sample, so small neighbourhoods carry some error. Statistics Canada publishes these for small census blocks, not communities, so each figure combines the blocks whose centre lies inside the community, weighted by households, and is approximate; blocks that straddle a boundary can shift it a little. ↩
Source: CMHC Rental Market Survey, Housing Market Information Portal. These are zone averages across all units in apartment buildings of three or more units, not a figure for Highwood alone, and they are not asking rents. Houses, basement suites and condos rented out by owners are not included. Zones are large, so neighbouring communities can share one figure. ↩
Sources: City of Calgary Open Data, Regulatory Flood Map (the version now in the Land Use Bylaw; a proposed update is still under review) and Noise Exposure Forecast Contours. Percentages are shares of the community's land area, not of homes, from a grid sample. They don't cover groundwater or sewer backup flooding. Hail and wildfire smoke affect the whole city; see the Calgary page. ↩
Schools: City of Calgary Schools. Students: Alberta Education enrolment, 2023-24 (2019-20 for the trend). Online, outreach and special programs are left out, and recently opened schools may be missing. ↩
Distances are in a straight line, not along streets, measured from points across the community to the closest of the 45 CTrain stations. Rivers, rail lines and highways can make the real walk longer. The Green Line is not included because it is not yet open. Source: City of Calgary Transit LRT Stations. ↩
Source: City of Calgary Building Permits, permits issued 2021–2025, averaged per year, pulled October 2026. Teardowns and infill: residential demolition permits (house or semi-detached) plus new semi-detached, rowhouse, townhouse and attached-unit permits. Secondary suites: below-grade suites, garage dwelling units and garden suites. Home improvements: residential alterations, additions, repairs, decks and basement development, excluding suites, garages and apartment work. Each unit of a semi-detached pair has its own permit. New detached houses and commercial permits are not in these three groups, and a permit is not proof that work was finished. ↩
Source: Calgary Police Service, Community Safety Data (2020 to Q3 2026). Rates use estimated mid-2025 population. Incidents are counted where they occur. Counts of 1 to 5 are rounded by CPS. How we calculate this. ↩

Highwood

At a glance

What the numbers mean

Who lives here

Homes

Getting to work1

Off-leash dog parks2

Daily errands on foot3

Assessed value by home type4

Estimated property tax5

Upfront closing costs6

Household income and housing costs7

Typical apartment rent nearby8

Flood and airport noise9

Schools10

LRT access11