Forest Heights

Living in Forest Heights

Housing in Forest Heights is mostly late-1950s and 1960s single-family bungalows on standard SE-suburb lots, with a mix of later 1970s and 1980s two-storey infill, some townhome and duplex development, and a small share of purpose-built rental buildings. The community sits on higher ground stepping down toward the Bow River valley on the north — Memorial Drive along the north edge carries east-west traffic toward downtown and separates Forest Heights from Marlborough across the road, and 36 Street SE on the west forms the seam with Albert Park / Radisson Heights. 8 Avenue SE on the south is the community’s border with Forest Lawn, and 52 Street SE on the east separates Forest Heights from Penbrooke Meadows. There is no CTrain station inside Forest Heights, and the community is served by MAX Purple bus rapid transit along 17 Avenue SE further south and by feeder bus routes into the SE transit network. For a similar SE community with a comparable postwar-era single-family character across Memorial Drive to the north, the Marlborough profile is the closest reference on vintage and demographic mix; for a same-quadrant SE peer immediately southeast, the Penbrooke Meadows profile is the closest reference across 52 Street SE.

Things to do in Forest Heights

Forest Heights’ clearest single amenity is its position on higher ground stepping down toward the Bow River — the community’s north-edge blocks along Memorial Drive have sight lines across the river valley toward downtown, and Memorial Drive gives quick driving access west into the downtown core. Day-to-day retail is concentrated on 17 Avenue SE further south, where the International Avenue commercial strip in Forest Lawn carries one of Calgary’s densest small-business retail corridors — grocery, restaurants, and specialty shops representing dozens of cultural traditions and drawing customers from across the SE and the rest of the city. That’s a short drive rather than inside the Forest Heights grid itself. Interior parks include community-level green space serving the residential blocks, and the wider Bow River pathway network is accessible via Memorial Drive on the north edge. School catchments for Forest Heights route to the wider SE public and Catholic networks; check the current Calgary Board of Education and Calgary Catholic School District attendance-area tools for the designated schools at a specific address. Any specific business inside Forest Heights is easiest to find through the Forest Heights business directory, which pulls current City of Calgary business-licence records.

The Forest Heights real-estate read

Forest Heights’ average assessed value sits at $432K, well below the citywide $732K — a reflection of the community’s postwar single-family homes and its SE location. Values rose 19.7% year-over-year against the citywide 15.2% — well above the broader Calgary pace and one of the sharper single-year moves in the SE quadrant. The strong yearly move reflects catch-up pricing pressure on the community’s original bungalows, which had run below its long-run relative value through the earlier part of the current cycle. Building activity is modest: 58 permits filed since 2024, weighted toward secondary-suite additions and renovation on the original homes rather than large-scale new construction. The community’s average build year sits around 1972, consistent with the 1959 establishment and the gradual infill across the 1960s and 1970s. The property values panel above shows how prices break across the community. On safety, disorder runs at 157.4 events per 1,000 residents — well above the citywide baseline of 54 per 1,000, one of the higher figures in the SE quadrant and a real factor in the community’s public perception. Year-over-year, the community’s disorder rate held roughly steady compared with the year before. For a similar-value SE community further south, the Ogden profile is the closest reference at a comparable price band.