Townhouses For Sale in Barrhaven – Half Moon Bay, Ottawa

A master plan that's still being built

Mattamy launched Half Moon Bay in 2007 on roughly 600 acres, planning for about 4,500 homes when it's done. Detached homes, two-storey rows and, in later phases, stacked towns have gone up side by side, and construction is still active at the edges.

The neighbourhood sits beside Stonebridge and its golf club, and the Minto Recreation Complex at Cambrian and Greenbank opened in 2014 to serve this end of Barrhaven. The Walter Baker Sports Centre is a short drive north. For a lot of buyers, that combination of new stock and new public facilities is the whole appeal: very little here is older than the buyer's car loan.

The flip side of living in an active master plan is that the neighbourhood around you will keep changing for years. Fields behind a fence line may already be zoned for another phase, and construction traffic on collector roads is part of daily life.

Stacked or two-storey: two different purchases

On a Half Moon Bay search you'll see both kinds of town, and they are not interchangeable.

• Two-storey rows are typically freehold, with a garage at the front and a small yard at the back. You own the lot, you handle your own roof and exterior, and there's normally no monthly fee unless the street is a private lane.
• Stacked towns put one unit over another, usually with separate entrances and a balcony or terrace instead of a yard. They are generally condominiums, so expect a monthly fee, a status certificate, rules on rentals and pets, and assigned rather than private parking.

Neither is the better buy across the board. The stacked unit trades outdoor space and control for a smaller footprint and shared maintenance; the row gives you the yard and the snow shovelling. Decide which trade suits you before you compare the two on price.

Buying a resale that may still carry warranty

Because so much of Half Moon Bay is recent, a resale town here may still be inside Ontario's new-home warranty periods: one year for workmanship and materials, two years for items like water penetration and the electrical, plumbing and heating systems, and seven years for major structural defects. Coverage generally follows the home rather than the first owner.

Ask the seller for the warranty enrolment details, the date of possession and any claims they've filed or settled. Deficiencies noted at the original walk-through that were never fixed are worth knowing about before you firm up, not after.

For a stacked town, also look at whether the condominium corporation has registered and whether its first-year budget has been replaced with one based on real costs. Early budgets in new condos sometimes understate what running the building will take.

Getting out of south Barrhaven

Highway 416 forms Barrhaven's western boundary, and the CitiGate campus beside it, with a Costco-anchored shopping centre, is a few minutes from most Half Moon Bay streets. Chapman Mills Marketplace at Strandherd and Greenbank handles day-to-day shopping.

For downtown commuters, Barrhaven runs on transitway buses and park-and-rides such as Strandherd, which opened in 2007. Rail service into Barrhaven isn't expected until after 2031. The more interesting option for some households is east across the Strandherd–Armstrong Bridge, opened in 2014, to Limebank station in Riverside South, where Line 2 has run since January 2025. Whether that beats the bus depends on where you're headed and where you can park.