Live in Hunt Club and South Keys
The belt between the Greenbelt and the airport — 1980s subdivisions, the city's cheapest studio rents, and two O-Train lines through the middle of it since January 2025.
This is the part of Ottawa that fills the gap between the old city and the Greenbelt on the south side, and for most of its life it has been defined by what passes through it rather than by what is in it: the Airport Parkway, Bank Street south, Hunt Club Road, the rail corridor and the flight path. The subdivisions went in from the 1970s and 1980s onward — Hunt Club East, Hunt Club Park, Hunt Club Woods, Blossom Park, and around the transit station, Greenboro and South Keys — and they are what a late-twentieth-century Ottawa suburb looks like: townhouses and detached houses on curving streets, with the shopping in a plaza rather than on a high street. What changed the arithmetic here is rail. On 6 January 2025 the Trillium Line reopened with an eleven-kilometre extension from Greenboro south to Limebank and four new stations, and Line 4 opened the same day as a four-kilometre branch from South Keys to the airport terminal. This is now the only part of Ottawa with a train to the airport, and the rents remain among the lowest in the city: CMHC put the average studio in the Hunt Club/South Keys zone at $1,007, the lowest of any zone in the survey.
The suburb the trains finally reached
Broadly the belt between the Rideau River and the Greenbelt on the south side of the city, from Bank Street east to Conroy Road, with the Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport at the southern end. This guide covers six Ottawa Neighbourhood Study neighbourhoods: Hunt Club East – Western Community, Hunt Club Park, Hunt Club Woods – Quintarra – Revelstoke, Hunt Club Upper – Blossom Park – Timbermill, South Keys – Greenboro West and Greenboro East.
This is the belt between the old city and the Greenbelt on the south side, and for most of its life it has been defined by what passes through it: the Airport Parkway, Bank Street south, Hunt Club Road, the rail corridor and the flight path. The subdivisions went in from the 1970s and 1980s — Hunt Club East, Hunt Club Park, Hunt Club Woods, Blossom Park, and around the transit station, Greenboro and South Keys. They are what a late-twentieth-century Ottawa suburb looks like: townhouses and detached houses on curving streets, with the shopping in a plaza rather than on a high street.
Then, on 6 January 2025, the trains arrived. Line 2 reopened with an eleven-kilometre extension south from Greenboro to Limebank, adding stations at South Keys, Leitrim, Bowesville and Limebank — and Line 4 opened the same day, a four-kilometre branch from South Keys to the airport terminal. This is the only part of Ottawa with a train to its airport, and from here Carleton University is a straight run north with no change and Parliament Hill is one change at Bayview.
And the rents did not follow. CMHC put the average studio in the Hunt Club/South Keys zone at $1,007 in October 2025 — the lowest of any zone in the survey — with one-bedrooms at $1,440 and two-bedrooms at $1,768, all below the Ottawa averages. Cheap rents plus better rail transit than most of the inner city is an unusual combination, and it is the main reason to look here.
The honest version. This is not a walkable neighbourhood in the high-street sense; South Keys is a retail plaza, not a village, and the streets were laid out on the assumption of a car. The housing is 1980s stock, which means it is past the age where roofs, windows and furnaces all come due at once. And you are under the approach to a busy airport: most days that is background, and on a still summer evening it is not. Visit in July, and stand outside for twenty minutes before you decide.
- The lowest average studio rent of any CMHC zone in Ottawa, at $1,007 in October 2025
- Line 2 and Line 4 both run through here since 6 January 2025 — the only rail link to the airport terminal in the city
- Carleton is a straight run north on Line 2 with no change, which makes this a strong student option
- Retail is plaza-format; there is no high street and the streets assume a car
- 1980s housing stock, at the age where the roof, the windows and the furnace tend to arrive together
- You are under the airport approach — visit on a still summer evening before deciding how much that matters
How Hunt Club and South Keys got here
- 1960sThe Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport takes its modern form at the southern end of what is still farmland, and the Airport Parkway is built to reach it. Everything that follows in this part of the city is shaped by that corridor.
- 1970sThe Greenbelt fixes the southern limit of the built-up city, and the land between it and the old boundary begins to fill. Greenboro and the first Hunt Club subdivisions go in.
- 1980sThe bulk of the housing is built — Hunt Club East, Hunt Club Park, Hunt Club Woods, Blossom Park — as townhouse and single-family subdivision on curving streets, with plaza retail rather than high streets.
- 1990s–2000sSouth Keys becomes the big-box retail centre for the whole south end, and the Transitway station beside it becomes one of the busiest interchanges in the network. The original O-Train pilot runs from Bayview to Greenboro from 2001.
- 2020sThe Trillium Line closes for the Stage 2 rebuild, and stays closed considerably longer than planned — a period the south end remembers clearly.
- 6 January 2025Line 2 reopens with an eleven-kilometre extension south from Greenboro to Limebank, adding stations at South Keys, Leitrim, Bowesville and Limebank. Line 4 opens the same day: a four-kilometre branch from South Keys to the airport terminal. Ottawa gets a train to its airport, and this is the neighbourhood it runs through.
- 2020sThe rents stay among the lowest in the city while the transit gets better than most of the inner city's, which is an unusual combination and the main reason to look here.
A creek through the middle and the Greenbelt at the bottom
Sawmill Creek runs north–south through the neighbourhood with a pathway beside it, connecting up to the Rideau River path at Hog's Back and Mooney's Bay — that is the local green spine and the running route. At the southern edge is the National Capital Greenbelt, and inside it Conroy Pit: the city's best-known off-leash dog area, with sand trails through pine plantation and enough of them to walk for an hour. Ten minutes north is Mooney's Bay, the nearest supervised beach.
The resident's angle: the Greenbelt is what stops this neighbourhood from merging into the subdivisions further south, and Conroy Pit is genuinely one of the better free amenities in the city. What is missing is water inside the neighbourhood — Sawmill Creek is a drainage corridor rather than a river, and for swimming you go north to Mooney's Bay.
24 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 24 places, nearest first.
Method: distances and drive times are estimated from a representative point near South Keys, using straight-line distance multiplied by a road factor and a tiered speed model — honest ranges, not routed times. Several of these are better done by train than the drive column suggests: the airport is one stop on Line 4, and Carleton is a straight run north on Line 2.
Every gym within reach
Jim Durrell Recreation Centre on Walkley Road is the nearest full City complex — an arena, a pool and a fitness centre beside the sports fields — with Canterbury in Alta Vista covered by the same membership. The free options here are unusually good: Conroy Pit and the Sawmill Creek pathway.
- Municipal pricing, and a City membership covers Canterbury and every other City facility too
- Canterbury Recreation Centre on Arch Street is the second option, ten minutes north
- Conroy Pit is the best-known off-leash dog area in Ottawa, five minutes away and free
- Commercial gyms are in the South Keys plazas rather than in the residential streets
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Jim Durrell Recreation Centre open | 1265 Walkley Road — an arena, a pool and a fitness centre beside the sports fields, and the nearest full City complex. Municipal pricing, and busy in the way a facility serving this many households is. | 5–8 min |
| Canterbury Recreation Centre open | 2185 Arch Street in Alta Vista — a pool, an arena and a gymnasium, covered by the same City membership. | 8–12 min |
| Conroy Pit open | Not a gym: the Greenbelt's best-known off-leash dog area, with sand trails through pine plantation and enough of them to walk for an hour. Free, and busy every evening. | 5–8 min |
| Sawmill Creek open | The creek corridor and pathway running north–south through the neighbourhood, connecting to the Rideau River path at Hog's Back — the local running and cycling route, and free. | 3–5 min |
The free option is the Sawmill Creek pathway, which runs the length of the neighbourhood and connects to the Rideau River network at Hog's Back — flat, continuous, and enough to build a real running route on without crossing an arterial.
Subdivision-era elementaries and two secondaries to the north
Hunt Club Public School on Uplands Drive and Steve MacLean on Rosebella are the catchment elementaries for the western and eastern halves. The public secondary catchment for much of the area is Hillcrest High School on Dauphin Road towards Alta Vista, and St. Patrick's on Alta Vista Drive is the Catholic secondary. Carleton University is a straight run north on Line 2 with no change.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Hunt Club Public School | OCDSB | One of the catchment elementaries, on Uplands Drive in the middle of the 1980s subdivisions. |
| Steve MacLean Public School | OCDSB | The elementary on Rosebella Avenue serving Blossom Park and the eastern side, named for the astronaut. |
| Hillcrest High School | OCDSB | The public secondary catchment for much of the area, on Dauphin Road towards Alta Vista. |
| St. Patrick's High School | OCSB | The Catholic secondary on Alta Vista Drive, serving the south end. |
| Carleton University | Post-secondary | A straight run north on Line 2 with no change — one of the best student commutes in the city, and the reason the rents here are worth a second look. |
This part of the city has grown quickly and its catchments have been redrawn more than once, with portables a normal feature of the busier schools. Confirm the current catchment for a specific address with the school board before you buy.
Month by month, what living here looks like
Not a highlights reel — the actual annual rhythm, including the dates residents have to remember.
- The Line 2 and Line 4 commute is at its most obviously worth having — a train to the airport in a snowstorm is a genuine advantage
- A daily mean of −10 °C and 59 cm of snow in an average January
- Conroy Pit's trails are packed by dog walkers within a day of any storm
- The coldest fortnight, with about 16 nights a year below −20 °C
- Community rinks run across the subdivisions when the cold holds
- The Greenbelt trails south of Hunt Club Road are skiable
- Sawmill Creek runs high and its low-lying pathway sections close for a couple of weeks
- Grit season on Bank Street south and Hunt Club Road
- March break, and the school traffic disappears for a week
- The Greenbelt trails are soft while the ground thaws
- The Rideau River peaks and Mooney's Bay's low ground goes under
- Flight schedules step up for the spring, which is audible under the approach path
- Best cycling weeks of the year on the Sawmill Creek and Rideau River pathways
- The Greenbelt's trails dry out and Conroy Pit becomes pleasant again
- Garden season in a neighbourhood of 1980s lots, which are smaller than Alta Vista's and bigger than the Glebe's
- Mooney's Bay's supervised beach opens ten minutes north
- Sunset near 8:50pm, and the pathways stay busy until well after it
- The Dragon Boat Festival at Mooney's Bay is the south end's big weekend
- A July daily mean of 21.2 °C with humidex regularly past 35; most of the housing here has central air
- Peak flight season, and the month to test how much the approach path matters to you
- The Line 4 airport train earns its keep on a holiday Friday
- The federal government empties and the Airport Parkway is briefly easy
- Peak humidity, and the busiest weeks at the South Keys plazas
- The last quiet fortnight before schools and Carleton restart
- Carleton returns and Line 2 becomes a student line — from here it is a straight run with no change
- The best weather of the year, and the best weeks in the Greenbelt
- Schools restart and Hunt Club Road gets its morning back
- The Greenbelt woodlots turn and Conroy Pit's pines make a good contrast to them
- The first frost usually lands in the first half of the month
- The Sawmill Creek corridor's maples are the neighbourhood's own autumn
- Dark by half past four, and the trains carry more of the commute than the roads do
- The overnight winter parking ban starts, though nearly every house here has a driveway
- Snow tires go on
- Community rinks open across the subdivisions when the cold holds
- The busiest fortnight of the year at the airport, and the one time everyone in the city envies this neighbourhood
- The first serious storm, and the first real test of Line 2's winter reliability each year
24 photographs of Ottawa and the region
Drawn from the site's shared, freely licensed Ottawa photo library — not photographs of Hunt Club and South Keys itself. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 24 photographs.
About these photographs. Openly licensed images geotagged in or near Hunt Club and South Keys, 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 Ottawa library.