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Cities / Calgary

Established · SE Calgary

Lake Bonavista

Large south-east community built around a private lake with high values

  • Families
  • Homeowners
  • Seniors

At a glance

A large 1960s–70s south-east community with about 10,300 residents, built around a man-made lake. About 80% of homes are detached and 20% are apartments, 88% of households own, and the median assessed value is about $822K. Police data shows crime below the city median and disorder calls well below it, per resident.

Median assessed home
$822K
2026 assessment, all home types · city $575K
Residents
11,040
estimate for mid-2025, up from 10,145 at the 2021 census
Households renting
12%
city 34%
Permits per year
125
2021–2025 average

What the numbers mean

  • The median assessed home is $822K, 43% above the Calgary median of $575K.
  • That median blends very different homes. By type, the medians are detached $919K, condo or apartment $314K (city: $718K detached, $478K semi or row, $295K condo). Compare like with like.
  • 12% of households rent, well below the 34% city-wide. Most people here own and stay a while.
  • 24% are 65 or older, versus 13% city-wide, a sign of long-time residents and a settled pace.
  • 80% of homes are single-family houses, versus 55% city-wide.
  • Building activity is in line with the city as a whole, at about 125 permits a year.

Who lives here

Share of residents by age, 2021 census.

0-1417%
15-196%
20-244%
25-348%
35-4414%
45-5412%
55-6414%
65-7413%
75+11%

Homes

Share of homes by type, 2019 civic census.

Single-family80%
Duplex0%
Townhouse0%
Apartment20%
Multi-plex & converted0%

Getting to work1

Drive, no traffic Bike

  • Downtown19 min drive · 1 h bike
  • Foothills and UCalgary24 min drive · 1 h 23 min bike
  • Airport26 min drive · 1 h 48 min bike
  • SE industrial15 min drive · 50 min bike

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

Lake and residents association2

Lake community Lake Bonavista Homeowners Association

Mandatory yearly fee
$409.50 a year incl. GST
due June 30
What it unlocks
Private lake, beach, swimming dock, boating and fishing for member households

Membership depends on the association's title encumbrance. Some condominiums and suites are excluded.

Off-leash dog parks3

2 off-leash areas inside the community. 5 more areas within 150 m of the boundary.

  • Bonavista Downs, fenced in part or with other fencing
  • Lake Bonavista, fenced in part or with other fencing

Daily errands on foot4

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

Supermarkets
3
city median 2
Cafés and bakeries
8
city median 4
Pharmacies and clinics
18
city median 4
Playgrounds and dog parks
29
city median 15

Assessed value by home type5

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

Detached house
$919K
3,254 homes · city $718K
Semi-detached or row
—
too few in the Lake Bonavista roll to report
Condo or apartment
$314K
828 homes · city $295K

Estimated property tax6

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
$6,110 a year
about $510 a month on a $919K assessment
Condo or apartment
$2,090 a year
about $175 a month on a $314K assessment

Upfront closing costs7

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
$870
on $822K

Household income and housing costs8

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

Median household income
$137,300
2020, before tax
Spend 30%+ on housing
10%
of owner and tenant households
Owners' monthly cost
$1,260
median shelter cost
Tenants' monthly cost
$1,300
median shelter cost

Typical apartment rent nearby9

Lake Bonavista sits in CMHC's Fish Creek survey zone. October 2025 average rent of purpose-built rental apartments in that zone:

Studio
$1,222
−$216 vs metro average
1 bedroom
$1,549
−$32 vs metro average
2 bedroom
$1,738
−$170 vs metro average
3 bedroom or more
$1,844
−$274 vs metro average

Flood and airport noise10

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

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

Schools11

  • 6 schools are located in Lake Bonavista.
  • There is no high school inside the community. From the middle of Lake Bonavista, the nearest high school is about 2.9 km away.
  • Enrolment is down 19% since 2019-20 across 6 schools, common in communities with fewer children. Schools with falling enrolment can be merged or closed over time.
  • Andrew SibbaldElementary · Calgary Board of Education · 363 students
  • Lake BonavistaElementary · Calgary Board of Education · 371 students
  • Sam LivingstonElementary · Calgary Board of Education · 420 students
  • St. Boniface ElementaryElementary · Calgary Catholic School District · 104 students
  • NickleElementary and junior high · Calgary Board of Education · 186 students
  • St. BonaventureJunior high · Calgary Catholic School District · 282 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 access12

The closest part of Lake Bonavista is 0.1 km from Canyon Meadows station (Red Line). About 18% of the community is inside an 800 m walk, so it depends on the street.

Within an 800 m walk18%
Within 1.6 km58%

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 for13

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

Safety14

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
11.2
per 1,000 · a little below the 13.5 median
Disorder calls
14.6
per 1,000 · below the 32.1 median
Violent crime
1.6
per 1,000 · median 2.3
Property crime
9.6
per 1,000 · median 10.6
  • Reported crime runs about 17% below the median Calgary community: 11.2 incidents per 1,000 residents a year, versus 13.5.
  • The most common reported crime is theft from vehicles, 26% of the total. 85% of incidents are property crime.
  • Crime has fallen since 2020: 138 reported incidents in 2025 versus 216 in 2020.
  • So far in 2026 (January to September) there have been 93 incidents, 13% fewer than the same months of 2025.

What gets reported

Top crime types in the rate, same period.

Theft from vehicles26%
Break-in: business18%
Break-in: garage or shed15%
Vehicle theft15%
Assault13%

Disorder calls

Most common non-criminal calls to police.

Suspicious Person22%
Unwanted Guest14%
Suspicious Vehicle14%
Disturbance12%

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: HomeownersAssociation.ca, Calgary lake communities comparison (published association fee schedules), fees as published for 2026, pulled October 2026; association page: Lake Bonavista Homeowners Association. Fees are secured against the property title and are generally mandatory for encumbered properties. Which fee class a property pays, and whether it holds lake rights, depends on the association boundary and the title, not the community name. Ask for the property's association account and fee class before you make an offer. ↩
  3. 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. ↩
  4. 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. ↩
  5. 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. ↩
  6. 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. ↩
  7. 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. ↩
  8. 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. ↩
  9. 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 Lake Bonavista 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. ↩
  10. 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. ↩
  11. 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. ↩
  12. 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. ↩
  13. 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. ↩
  14. 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. ↩