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Cities / Calgary

Inner city · NW Calgary

Hillhurst

Kensington's shops and cafés, with the Bow River and a Red Line stop close by

  • Young professionals
  • Couples
  • Foodies

At a glance

A lively inner-city community on the north side of the Bow River, best known for the Kensington village around Kensington Road and 10 Street NW. It mixes older homes and infill with a lot of apartments, and about half of households rent. About one in four residents is aged 25 to 34.

Median assessed home
$501K
2026 assessment, all home types · city $575K
Residents
6,560
estimate for mid-2025, up from 5,475 at the 2021 census
Households renting
51%
city 34%
Permits per year
123
2021–2025 average

What the numbers mean

  • The median assessed home is $501K, 13% below the Calgary median of $575K.
  • That median blends very different homes. By type, the medians are detached $979K, semi-detached or row $885K, condo or apartment $372K (city: $718K detached, $478K semi or row, $295K condo). Compare like with like.
  • 51% of households rent, well above the 34% city-wide, so expect a younger, more mobile mix of neighbours.
  • 26% of residents are 20 to 34, versus 21% city-wide. It skews young-professional.
  • Housing is a mix: 45% apartments, with the rest townhouses, duplexes and houses.
  • Building activity is in line with the city as a whole, at about 123 permits a year.

Who lives here

Share of residents by age, 2021 census.

0-1415%
15-194%
20-246%
25-3421%
35-4418%
45-5413%
55-6413%
65-748%
75+3%

Homes

Share of homes by type, 2019 civic census.

Single-family33%
Duplex10%
Townhouse4%
Apartment45%
Multi-plex & converted8%

Getting to work1

Drive, no traffic Bike

  • Downtown7 min drive · 20 min bike
  • Foothills and UCalgary8 min drive · 16 min bike
  • Airport19 min drive · 43 min bike
  • SE industrial17 min drive · 56 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. 5 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
8
city median 2
Cafés and bakeries
42
city median 4
Pharmacies and clinics
7
city median 4
Playgrounds and dog parks
15
city median 15

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
$979K
956 homes · city $718K
Semi-detached or row
$885K
421 homes · city $478K
Condo or apartment
$372K
1,085 homes · city $295K

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
$6,510 a year
about $540 a month on a $979K assessment
Semi-detached or row
$5,890 a year
about $490 a month on a $885K assessment
Condo or apartment
$2,470 a year
about $205 a month on a $372K assessment

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
$550
on $501K

Household income and housing costs7

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

Median household income
$95,900
2020, before tax
Spend 30%+ on housing
24%
of owner and tenant households
Owners' monthly cost
$1,520
median shelter cost
Tenants' monthly cost
$1,290
median shelter cost

Typical apartment rent nearby8

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

Studio
$1,382
−$56 vs metro average
1 bedroom
$1,463
−$118 vs metro average
2 bedroom
$1,869
−$39 vs metro average
3 bedroom or more
$2,408
+$290 vs metro average

Flood and airport noise9

A small part of Hillhurst (about 2% of its land area) lies inside the City's regulatory flood map, usually next to a river or creek. Check the exact address on the City's river flood map.

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

Schools10

  • 3 schools are located in Hillhurst, covering elementary, junior high and high school.
  • Enrolment is steady, up 7% since 2019-20 across 3 schools.
  • HillhurstElementary · Calgary Board of Education · 277 students
  • Queen ElizabethElementary · Calgary Board of Education · 404 students
  • Queen Elizabeth HighJunior and senior high · Calgary Board of Education · 997 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

About 85% of Hillhurst is within an 800 m walk (roughly 10 minutes) of SAIT/ACAD/Jubilee station on the Red Line. Many homes here can walk to the train.

Within an 800 m walk85%
Within 1.6 km100%

How it's changing

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

*2026 is year to date.

What the building permits are for12

Teardowns and infill
12 a year
Demolitions plus new semis, rowhouses and townhouses: construction noise, dumpsters and change on the street
Secondary suites
3 a year
New basement, garage and garden suites: more rental homes and more cars on the street
Home improvements
18 a year
Renovations, additions and decks: owners investing in homes they plan to keep

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
28.4
per 1,000 · above the 13.5 median
Disorder calls
74.2
per 1,000 · above the 32.1 median
Violent crime
5.2
per 1,000 · median 2.3
Property crime
23.2
per 1,000 · median 10.6
  • Reported crime runs about 2.1× the median Calgary community: 28.4 incidents per 1,000 residents a year, versus 13.5.
  • The most common reported crime is theft from vehicles, 37% of the total. 82% of incidents are property crime.
  • Crime has fallen since 2020: 141 reported incidents in 2025 versus 310 in 2020.
  • So far in 2026 (January to September) there have been 160 incidents, 39% more 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.

What gets reported

Top crime types in the rate, same period.

Theft from vehicles37%
Vehicle theft12%
Break-in: business11%
Assault10%
Break-in: garage or shed10%

Disorder calls

Most common non-criminal calls to police.

Unwanted Guest32%
Suspicious Person28%
Disturbance15%
Mental Health Concern6%

Reported crime by year

*2026 is year to date.

Sources and notes

  1. 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). ↩
  2. 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. ↩
  3. 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. ↩
  4. 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. ↩
  5. 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. ↩
  6. 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. ↩
  7. 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. ↩
  8. 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 Hillhurst 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. ↩
  9. 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. ↩
  10. 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. ↩
  11. 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. ↩
  12. 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. ↩
  13. 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. ↩