Live in Auburn Bay
A 43-acre lake on a 13-acre park, and a major hospital immediately south.
Auburn Bay was established in 2005 and grew faster than almost anything else in Calgary: 18,090 residents by 2021. It is built around a 43-acre lake on a 13-acre park, with the 14,000-square-foot Auburn House at its centre. The South Health Campus hospital and the Seton district sit immediately south. Twenty-eight per cent of residents are under 15, against 18 per cent across Calgary.
A hospital, a beach, and eighteen thousand people in fifteen years
Bounded north by Stoney Trail, west by Deerfoot Trail, east by 52 Street SE and south by Seton Boulevard, with Mahogany, Seton and Cranston adjacent. Ward 12, in the City's Southeast sector.
Auburn Bay was established in 2005 and grew about as fast as a Calgary community can: by the 2021 census it held 18,090 residents in 6,245 private households, making it one of the largest communities in the city by population and one of the densest at roughly 4,020 people per km². Twenty-eight per cent of residents are under 15, against 18% across Calgary, and only 5% are 65 or over.
It is organised around a 43-acre lake on a 13-acre park, with the 14,000-square-foot Auburn House at its centre: a full-size gymnasium, banquet space with lake views and a skate changeroom. The park carries a splash park, play equipment, a fishing dock, a boathouse, tennis courts and picnic shelters, all on exclusive resident access. The association publishes no depth for the lake, so this guide does not state one.
Housing mix. Broader than the older lake suburbs: 25% of households rent, against 31% across Calgary, with a median household income of $125,000 in 2020. Around 22% of households spend 30% or more of income on shelter, which is worth weighing against that median.
Services and transit. The South Health Campus at 4448 Front Street SE sits immediately south: 642 inpatient beds, a 24-hour emergency department, an intensive care unit and day surgery, fully operational by 2016. The Seton district next to it carries the Brookfield Residential YMCA. The Green Line broke ground on 26 June 2025, but the revised Phase 1 runs only from Eau Claire to Lynnwood/Millican and is expected around 2031. Seton is in the full vision, not the line being built. Today this is a car-dependent community.
- Downtown is 22–32 minutes on a good day; there is no CTrain station yet
- The Green Line broke ground in June 2025, but Phase 1 stops at Lynnwood/Millican around 2031. Seton is in the full vision, not the funded line: do not price it in
- Three fee tiers: standard $523.92, lake access $720.41, lakeshore $1,047.80 for 2026–27
- Fees are due 1 April and accrue interest from 1 May, and rise with compounded inflation annually
- A quarter of households rent, and 54% of census families are married couples with children. This is a family community with a real rental share
How Auburn Bay got here
- 2005Auburn Bay is established in Calgary's far southeast, built around a 43-acre lake.
- 2016The South Health Campus, immediately south at 4448 Front Street SE, is fully operational: 642 inpatient beds, a 24-hour emergency department, an intensive care unit and day surgery, run by Alberta Health Services.
- 2010sThe Seton district builds out south of the community, adding retail, a cinema and the Brookfield Residential YMCA at Seton, at 4995 Market Street SE.
- 2019The City's last civic census counts 17,603 residents in 6,046 dwellings, 5,872 of them occupied and 4,342 owner-occupied.
- 2021The federal census counts 18,090 residents in 6,245 private households, one of Calgary's largest communities by population, with a median household income of $125,000 in 2020 and an average household size of 2.9.
- 2025The Green Line breaks ground on 26 June, but the revised Phase 1 runs only from Eau Claire to Lynnwood/Millican, expected around 2031. Seton and the far southeast are part of the full vision, not the line under construction.
Forty-three acres of private water, and a park to match
Private and resident-only, run by the Auburn Bay Residents Association, which also operates Auburn House. Every property carries the fee, and the amount depends on whether the lot is standard, lake-access or lakeshore.
- Due 1 April 2026; from 1 May 2026 all outstanding properties are subject to interest
- Standard $523.92 · lake access $720.41 · lakeshore $1,047.80, all including GST
- Subject to annual compounded inflation increases and GST
- Payments by credit card carry an additional 2 per cent processing fee
- Administered by the Auburn Bay Residents Association, which also operates Auburn House
- Contact: auburnbayra.ca
| The lake and Auburn House | Figure |
|---|---|
| Lake surface | 43 acres |
| Auburn House park | 13 acres |
| Auburn House | 14,000 ft² |
| Standard fee (2026 to 2027) | $523.92 incl. GST |
| Lakeshore lot fee | $1,047.80 incl. GST |
| Fees due | 1 April |
A 13-acre park, developer-built playgrounds, and a dog park
Auburn Bay has no provincial park or river valley at its edge, so the open space is what the developer built: playgrounds, ponds, an off-leash dog park and a walking and cycling network through the community. The 13-acre Auburn House park is the centrepiece, with the lake, a splash park, play equipment, a fishing dock, a boathouse, tennis courts and picnic shelters, all on exclusive resident access.
What the map does not show: be clear-eyed about what this is. Developer-built parkland is well-maintained and genuinely inside the community, but it is not protected the way a provincial park is, and there is no equivalent here to Fish Creek or the Bow valley. What you get instead is services: a 642-bed hospital with a 24-hour emergency department and a full YMCA within five minutes, which no other community on this site can match.
Elsewhere in Calgary, not Auburn Bay
22 places, with real drive times
Road-adjusted distance and drive time from the centre of the community to each destination, nearest first. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 22 places, nearest first.
Method: distances and drive times are estimated from the community centre to each destination using Calgary's road grid, and are rounded to honest ranges rather than presented as precise figures. The numbers that matter most here are the short ones. Hospital, YMCA and Seton are all within about five minutes, and the long ones, because downtown, the airport and the mountains are all a genuine haul.
Every gym within reach
One facility dominates the picture here so completely that the rest is almost a footnote, plus Auburn House, which your annual fee already covers.
- A YMCA Calgary health and fitness branch at 4995 Market Street SE, the closest large facility to the community
- A Calgary Public Library branch sits inside the same building
- Auburn House, its full-size gymnasium and the 13-acre park with its tennis courts are already covered by your ABRA fee
- Chain clubs and studios cluster at Auburn Station and across Seton
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Brookfield Residential YMCA at Seton open | YMCA Calgary health and fitness branch at 4995 Market Street SE, with a Calgary Public Library branch in the same building. | 5–8 min |
| Auburn House open | Included with the ABRA fee: a 14,000 ft² centre with a full-size gymnasium, banquet space with lake views and a skate changeroom, on a 13-acre park beside the lake. | 3–4 min |
| GoodLife Fitness, Seton open | National chain club in the Seton Urban District. | 5–7 min |
| Anytime Fitness, Auburn Bay open | 24-hour access chain gym at Auburn Station. | 2–5 min |
| Orangetheory Fitness, Seton open | Heart-rate-based group interval training studio. | 4–6 min |
| F45 Training, Seton open | Functional group training studio, 45-minute classes. | 4–7 min |
| Auburn Bay lake and park open | Covered by the annual fee: the 43-acre lake, the fishing dock and boathouse, tennis courts, a splash park and play equipment on the 13-acre park. | 1–4 min |
| Cardel Rec South open | Four indoor rinks and a field house in the deep south. Worth knowing, but Seton is far closer. | 11–17 min |
The free option is a good one. The community's pathway network, playgrounds and ponds cost nothing, and the lake and the park are already paid for through the annual fee. The association publishes a live amenities status page and a water and ice safety hub: use them before you plan a winter afternoon.
Five schools inside the community
Auburn Bay School (K to 4), Bayside (K to 5) and Lakeshore (5 to 9) on the public side, with Prince of Peace (K to 9) and St. Gianna (K to 6) on the Catholic side. An unusually complete set for a community this young. The Catholic pair could not be checked with the district: its site refuses automated clients, so those two grade ranges come from Wikipedia.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Auburn Bay School | Calgary Board of Education | Public kindergarten to grade 4 inside the community. |
| Bayside School | Calgary Board of Education | Public kindergarten to grade 5 inside the community. |
| Lakeshore School | Calgary Board of Education | Public grades 5 to 9 inside the community. |
| Prince of Peace School | Calgary Catholic | Catholic kindergarten to grade 9 inside the community. The district's own site refuses automated clients, so this was read from Wikipedia rather than from CCSD. |
| St. Gianna School | Calgary Catholic | Catholic kindergarten to grade 6 inside the community, on the same caveat: read from Wikipedia, not from the district. |
Alberta funds Catholic education the same way it funds public education, so there is no tuition for a resident student at either board. In a community that added eighteen thousand people in fifteen years, attendance boundaries and overflow designations change often: confirm the current designation for a specific address with the board before you buy, not after.
Month by month, what living here looks like
Not a highlights reel: the actual annual rhythm, including the dates residents have to remember.
- Lake frozen. Auburn House has a skate changeroom, so plan on the ice being used; check the association amenities status
- Auburn House gymnasium runs on a published schedule through the winter
- Seton YMCA's twin arenas carry the organised hockey season
- Deerfoot and Stoney both ice up in cold snaps: leave extra time
- Winter use continues; the association publishes an amenities status page
- Family Day long weekend: Auburn House programming runs all weekend
- Chinooks can take the ice out for a few days at a time
- Indoor season peaks at the Seton YMCA
- Ice off the lake late in the month in a warm year
- Spring break: Seton's cinema and YMCA fill up
- First bare pavement on the community's pathways
- ABRA fee invoices land ahead of the 1 April deadline
- ABRA fees due 1 April: interest accrues from 1 May on unpaid accounts
- Lake thaws; floating docks and the boat fleet return
- Fishing dock and boathouse come back into use as the ice goes
- Goslings and ducklings appear on the lake and the two ponds
- Beach and the 13-acre park readied for the season
- May long weekend: first beach evenings of the year
- Tennis, pickleball and beach volleyball courts open
- Fifteen playgrounds across the community come back into use
- Swimming season opens on one of Calgary's deepest lakes
- Splash park opens for the summer
- Longest evenings of the year: light past 10pm
- June rains: Calgary's wettest month
- Calgary Stampede: ten days, 22–32 minutes up Deerfoot Trail
- The lake, the fishing dock and the boathouse at full tilt
- Canada Day at Auburn House is the community's biggest day
- Evening thunderstorms roll in off the foothills
- Warmest water of the year in the lake
- Warmest water of the year at the lake
- Back-to-school runs at Auburn Station and Seton
- Spruce Meadows Masters, about half an hour west
- Aspens turn across the community's parks and ponds
- School year starts at all five community schools
- Boats out of the water by month end
- Migrating waterfowl stage on the lake and ponds
- Last reliable dry-pathway weeks around the lake
- First hard frosts; furnace season begins
- Halloween: enormous in a community this young and this large
- First snowfall often before month end
- Lake begins to freeze; stay off until ABRA flags it safe
- The association posts water and ice safety guidance as freeze-up approaches
- Winter tires on: Deerfoot and Stoney both ice up
- Christmas lights go up early; dark by 5pm
- The lake typically freezes mid to late December; wait for the association to flag conditions
- Shortest days: sunrise about 8:38am, sunset about 4:30pm at solstice
- Chinooks can strip the snow overnight and bring it right back
- Auburn House banquet space and gymnasium carry the indoor season
1 more photograph of the community and its surroundings
All freely licensed, via Wikimedia Commons. Filter by category.
Showing 1–1 of 1 photographs.
About these photographs. Openly licensed images geotagged in or near Auburn Bay, found on Wikimedia Commons and served from there with full attribution. Inline photos elsewhere on the page may still come from the site's shared Calgary library.