Tell Me About Your Neighbourhood

[Locke]

Well, Capitol Hill tends to have too many Government employees on it.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

I live in Redwood Meadows great neighbourhood for raising kids and if you work in the west the commute is very reasonable.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Bonded

Bumping again.

Any opinions on west hillhurst vs capitol hill?

My brother owns a duplex in Capitol Hill and it is a decent area. It is a bit cheaper than West Hillhurst.

[T-Rich]

Yeah, the big thing is Capitol Hill is cheaper. You lose out on walkability to downtown, Kensington, and to the river pathway compared to West Hillhurst.

Capitol Hill has really good access to transit, SAIT, Lions Park, and Banff Trail are all within an easy walking distance depending where in the neighbourhood you end up. Easy to hop on 16th Ave and be out to the mountains. Easy to walk to McMahon for a stamps game. North Hill mall isn't a great mall but it's never busy which makes it easy to get in/out quickly. You can go for walks in Confederation Park or cross country ski at the golf course if you are into that. Really easy to bike into downtown.

Basically I'd say if you can't afford West Hillhurst, or if walkability isn't a big thing to you, then Capitol Hill is a great option.

[Calgary14]

Bump. Any thoughts on Willow Park? I have a friend interested in moving there and I am somewhat familiar with it, but curious to get perspective from someone who lives/lived there

[CarlLester]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

Bump. Any thoughts on Willow Park? I have a friend interested in moving there and I am somewhat familiar with it, but curious to get perspective from someone who lives/lived there

Moved to WP 3+ years ago. We love it. Easy access to many main roads - it has simplified our lives as far as getting to work, running kids around to activities, etc.

Speaking of kids, there have been more moving into the area in recent years (if that is important to you friend) and I see that trend continuing as there are still a lot of really old original owners who won't be there forever.

Obviously the houses are older so factor in potential renovation costs, etc.

WP works for us. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

[temple5]

Riverbend (Across the river from Ikea)

Pros:
*Home prices. In relation to distance to downtown we found it to be the best bang for your buck. Home valuations on our block range from $350-550K I would say in all of Riverbend homes can range from $280-800K depending how close to the river you are
*Great location for road access Deerfoot/Glenmore
*Close to anything you would ever need to buy
*Carburn Park is 5 minute walk from our house
*Very close to Chinook/Ikea/Superstore/Costco (40 minute walk to Ikea)
*45 minute bike ride to downtown all on pathways
*5 minute bike ride to QP YMCA
*Great mix of incomes and home styles, realator told us the developer wanted to mix incomes so on our block for instance you will see a relatively even mix of homes with double car, single car garages in front, homes with garages only in the alley etc. Obviously the more expensive the lot the more likely there is to be a double car garage home.

Cons:
*Obviously car dependent, if you have kids you need 2 cars (we are not in the car2go area )
*No multifamily housing so no reason for the City to ever invest big dollars
*transit options obviously difficult to provide to an area that has has no density, Green line will probably make transit options worse for Riverbend
*unless you want to go to local public school all good school options are in the Acadia area of town so kids will always be on a bus.

[RockLicker]

Originally Posted by CarlLester

Moved to WP 3+ years ago. We love it. Easy access to many main roads - it has simplified our lives as far as getting to work, running kids around to activities, etc.

Speaking of kids, there have been more moving into the area in recent years (if that is important to you friend) and I see that trend continuing as there are still a lot of really old original owners who won't be there forever.

Obviously the houses are older so factor in potential renovation costs, etc.

WP works for us. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Hi neighbour! Would generally echo what's been said above. Moved to Willow Park about 6 years ago, and have no desire to leave unless we were exiting Calgary entirely. When we were looking for a house I wanted to be a little further north, and my wife was totally sold on the Lake at Bonavista, so WP wasn't the first area we looked at.

With young kids we were looking very much for a hood with a strong community sense, and man that's exactly what we got (to be fair, we bought across from a park that's the neighbourhood hub in the summer, and hosts a sweet rink in the winter, and we've actively worked to cultivate relationships with neighbours). There's a couple of turds on the street, but aside from that, everyone is great, social and looks out for one another, but generally still mind their own business. Nice change from other communities I've experienced where everyone just drove into their garage and disappeared.

Definitely big turnover with more young families coming in. Has been great. Our interior is definitely on the ugly, but functional end of the spectrum, just starting to dip into renovations now, and terrified of scope creep, but we knew that going in.

Even though I had initially looked further north, it's a 30ish min bike ride DT and easy access to just about everything you'd want, aside from getting west of town. Getting out to the SW is pretty good, but going out on Hwy1 west sort of sucks. Probably my biggest gripe about the neighbourhood. Love Lakeview for that access, but you pay for it.