Townhouses For Sale in Kanata – Kanata Lakes / Heritage Hills, Ottawa

A 1960s garden-city plan with a golf course at its heart

In the 1960s, a single developer bought about 4,000 acres of March Township farmland and set out to build a garden city of separate communities, starting with Beaverbrook. The plan was never completed as drawn. The land around the Kanata Lakes Golf and Country Club became the core of the Kanata Lakes neighbourhood, which today sits north of the Queensway, west of Beaverbrook, east of Terry Fox Drive and south of Morgan's Grant.

Later builders filled in around that core in phases, mixing detached homes with rows. The result is less uniform than Emerald Meadows or Longfields: streets of different ages and builders sit close together, and a town on one crescent can be a decade newer than one on the next.

Building into the Beaver Pond Forest

The most recent phases have come from KNL Developments, a consortium of Urbandale, Richcraft, Uniform and Cardel, which has been clearing about two square kilometres of the Beaver Pond Forest for new homes. The project drew strong local opposition.

If you're looking at a home near the newest edge, find out what's planned behind and beside it. Buyers who chose a street for its forest views have sometimes found construction there instead. The city's development applications map is the place to check.

If you're buying a resale in a recent KNL phase, also ask about any remaining builder warranty coverage, outstanding deficiency items and whether the street has been formally assumed by the city. Until a subdivision's roads are assumed, some services and repairs can still be the developer's responsibility, which affects who you call when something goes wrong.

Kanata Centrum on one side, the tech park on the other

Kanata Centrum, a large power centre with adjoining development including Ottawa's biggest cinema, covers most shopping. Terry Fox Drive connects north to the Kanata North Business Park and south to Highway 417. Commuters with jobs in the tech park get one of the shorter suburban commutes in the city; those heading downtown face the Queensway like the rest of Kanata.

Backing onto the Kanata Lakes fairways

Some homes in the original core sit beside the golf course, and a fairway view is part of what they sell for. Two things are worth knowing before you pay for it.

First, the course's future has been contested. Its owner proposed replacing it with housing, and the plan turned into a long legal dispute with the city over an old agreement to keep the land as open space. Check where that stands before treating the view as permanent.

Second, living beside a golf course has everyday side effects: stray balls near the property line, early-morning maintenance equipment and golfers within sight of the yard. Walk the back of the property on a busy weekend morning, and look at the fence and any windows facing the course for signs of past damage.

Which Kanata Lakes town suits which buyer

• Tech-park commuters: rows on the north side of the neighbourhood put the business park within easy reach.
• Buyers who want mature trees and finished streets: look at the older phases near the golf course core.
• Buyers who want newer construction: the KNL phases are the newest, with the trade-off of nearby building activity.
• Investors and first-time buyers: freehold rows with no monthly fee keep carrying costs simple; confirm the street isn't a private lane with a shared-cost arrangement.

Heritage Hills, paired with Kanata Lakes by the board, adds more streets to compare, so check exactly where in the area a listing falls before you judge it against its neighbours.