New homes are under construction in the Seton community in southeast Calgary. The area was area was designed to have higher density around key amenities, including a hospital and LRT.Arden Shibley/Arden Shibley
More than two decades ago, city planners envisioned Calgary’s deep southeast as an enclave of complete communities where residents would not only find an array of housing options, but also the services and amenities that support an urban lifestyle, including access to frequent, reliable transit.
The Southeast Centre Area Structure Plan guided the creation of three greenfield communities on the city’s outskirts: Mahogany, Auburn Bay, and Seton. Conceived as the subdivision’s centre, the latter is significantly denser than the other two and today boasts employment centres such as Calgary’s South Health Campus, as well as world-class amenities such as the Brookfield Residential YMCA.
Located at the southernmost stop of the Green Line LRT, a light-rail transit line four decades in the making, Seton was designed with public transit in mind. Consequently, the master-planned neighbourhood accommodates less surface parking than a typical suburban community, as households weren’t expected to require more than one private vehicle – plus, less surface parking supports a more pleasant experience for pedestrians, a key feature of transit-oriented development.
However, access to adequate transit is yet to materialize in Seton.
Existing bus-rapid transit isn’t as frequent as light-rail transit, and the Green Line is unlikely to reach Calgary’s deep southeast for at least another decade. This mismatch between the city’s vision and the infrastructure needed to support it, is starting to show in Seton’s real estate market.
According to MLS data compiled by Wahi, an AI-powered real estate platform, condos in Seton’s resale market are more likely to sell below listing price when units offer one parking stall only.
Anne Alkok, broker of record at Wahi, says that part of the reason for this is that a large share of buyers are couples who need more than one vehicle to get around.
Seton was planned to accommodate less surface parking than a typical suburban community, as households were expected to take advantage of Calgary's Green line LRT and, as such, weren’t expected to require more than one private vehicle.Cedarglen Living
“Most people who are buying, are not buying alone. If they can afford to buy a unit that has two parking spots that’s ideal, but if not, they need to find a solution for themselves – and that can be challenging.”
Sold at a median price of $399,000 in 2024, condos with two-parking stalls in Seton are often more affordable than units in the city’s centre, as proximity to transit tends to increase a property’s resale value.
“Access to transit affects the value of a property to a buyer,” Ms. Alkok says. “Homes near good transit tend to increase in value.”
While plans to enable transit-oriented communities in suburban areas aren’t uncommon, a lack of municipal capacity to ensure transit and residential development occur in tandem can put a dent on these plans, explains Ahmed El-Geneidy, a professor of transportation planning at McGill University.
“You need to have municipal authorities who are doing land use and transport planning together,” he says. “But the money has to come from the provincial and the federal governments.”
This disconnect is evident in Calgary’s southeast.
To enable the creation of transit-oriented communities along future primary transit lines, such as the Green Line LRT, city planners in Calgary work in co-ordination with a variety of stakeholders, including Calgary Transit and real estate developers. Although having a plan in place facilitates access to provincial and federal funding to build transit infrastructure, it doesn’t guarantee it.
“You have to write enabling policies that get you the outcomes that you want,” says Fazeel Elahi, a local area planning program co-ordinator at the City of Calgary. “Sometimes funding will be catching up to what’s happened in reality; other times, market conditions can dictate changes that force certain areas to build out much faster than others.”
Located at the southernmost end of the planned Green Line LRT, Seton was designed with public transit in mind.Cedarglen Living
Since Calgary’s population took off in 2023, close to 2,000 apartments have been completed in Seton, or about 10 per cent of Calgary’s total, and an additional 1,088 units are currently under construction, according to CMHC data.
Because access to public transit isn’t a deal breaker for suburban condo buyers, whose primary motivation is price-point relative to size, builders in Seton are confident demand for condos will continue through 2026, even as this segment of the market is expected to soften.
“We believe there’s demand for more units in Seton,” says Cole Haggins, president of multi-family builder Cedarglen Living. “It’s a very desirable community.”
Currently, Cedarglen Living is building a 550-unit multi-family complex in Seton, Seton Serenity, where condos start at $355,000, a price-point that attracts first-time buyers, downsizers and investors.
However, lagging transit infrastructure is a growing concern for Mr. Haggins, as building apartments without sufficient parking isn’t ideal, and the cost of constructing additional underground parking to provide more than one stall per unit would raise prices beyond what buyers are willing to pay for a suburban condo.
“The product we’re building needs adequate parking for people, because we don’t actually have LRT transportation around our sites,” he says. “If we could get the Green Line down here, it would make the neighbourhood more accessible.”
Increasing transit frequency in Seton would benefit the close to 4,000 Calgarians who call this neighbourhood home, most of whom are renter families with a moderate income. However, in the face of low ridership rates, further investment in transit is not currently justified, says Evan Spencer, the area’s councillor.
“Unfortunately, transit dollars should go where they’re needed the most, which is in the established neighbourhoods.”
In January, the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC), the City of Calgary’s subsidiary behind the successful redevelopment of East Village and the Rivers District, announced the organization is expanding its mandate to include transit-oriented communities on city-owned land along the city’s light-rail network. This move was enabled by $20-million allocated to Calgary’s transit-oriented housing strategy, which aims to advance densification in established neighbourhoods.
But there’s only so much money to go around in a sprawling city.
Because the residential property tax rate in Calgary remains one of the lowest in the country, despite unprecedented population growth, the city’s infrastructure gap is expanding, Coun. Spencer says.
“There’s a massive gap between people’s expectations for what the city can deliver, and what the city can actually deliver for the taxes that we’re paying.”