Norgate, North Vancouver: Homes for Sale, Prices, Schools and Daily Life

Norgate lies south of Marine Drive, between the Squamish Nation's Capilano reserve on the west and Pemberton Avenue on the east. Welch Street is the south edge. The District of North Vancouver's street data holds 14 street names here that end in "wood", from Alderwood Place to Whitewood Place, and nine of them are crescents.

The land is low and level. A sea level strategy that the District and its North Shore partners finished in 2021 describes Norgate as flat ground laid down by Mackay Creek. It puts Pemberton Avenue at West 1st Street, one block south of Welch Street, at 2.7 metres on the national height scale it uses. The same report calls Welch Street the line between homes to the north and port and business land to the south. The District's rail data draws train tracks south of Welch Street.

In our view, Norgate suits a buyer who wants a detached house with a garden on level streets, a school and playing fields inside the neighbourhood, and frequent buses on Marine Drive. The trade-offs are small original houses, low ground near the harbour, and trains and port work to the south. A buyer who wants a townhouse finished in the last few years should also look at Pemberton, and a buyer who wants a hillside view should look at Pemberton Heights.

The North Shore Heritage Preservation Society writes that this land was first proposed as an airfield. A plan for two runways, called Capilano Air Park, was put forward in 1945 and never funded, partly because flying so close to the Lions Gate Bridge was judged unsafe. Norman Hullah bought the land instead, the Society says.

His company put up the houses in batches of 50. The Society counts 480 homes finished between 1949 and 1952, and the District's 1997 inventory of buildings from 1930 to 1965 says five hundred. That inventory calls Norgate "an idealized example of postwar suburban planning" and one of the first projects to vary the outside of each house while the floor plans stayed identical. The Society adds that the homes were sold to families, with priority given to veterans, and that Sowden Street is named after Sam Sowden, the District commissioner from 1945 to 1951 who supported the plan.

The original houses had one floor and 900 to 1,600 square feet, by the Society's account. Each stood on a concrete slab with no basement, and hot water pipes in the slab warmed the floor. The inventory says the Norgate Park Community Association formed soon after the first families moved in. It obtained paved roads, street lights, boulevard trees and park strips, and its members helped to build the local church and school. The school's own history gives 1951 as its first year.

The subdivision was once larger. The Society writes that an apartment building at 15th Street and Bridgman Avenue replaced original houses in 1988, and that the Illahee housing complex was built on the block between Tatlow Avenue, Bowser Avenue, Marine Drive and 15th Street in 1992. No source we read explains the name Norgate.

Shops are close by. The map on this page shows Save-On-Foods, Bulk Barn and Sungiven Foods as the nearest food stores, and Tim Hortons, Abadan, Starbucks and Bean Around The World among the nearest cafes. The school describes Norgate as a quiet community of houses and townhouse complexes with restaurants and shopping centres around it.

The school also serves as a community centre. By its own account, Norgate Xwemélch'stn Community Elementary has been a designated community school since 1996 and runs after-school programs and spring and summer camps. It also says the closest public recreation centre and library are a distance away. On this page's map, the nearest are the Lions Gate Community Recreation Centre and the Capilano branch of the North Vancouver District Public Library.

Two public projects are planned or under way at the edge of the neighbourhood. The District plans to replace the Norgate fire station, which dates from 1972, and its page says design work runs until early 2027. A temporary station will go on Pemberton Park, the small park with a tennis court beside it on West 15th Street, and the park will be restored afterward. South of Welch Street, Metro Vancouver is building the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant at 107 Pemberton Avenue. The District says the plant's cost overruns are behind the higher Metro Vancouver fees on residents' utility bills.

Norgate Park is at 15th Street and Tatlow Avenue. The District's park data lists it as a community sports park with two baseball diamonds, two soccer fields, a cricket pitch, change rooms, washrooms and a parking lot. In January 2025 the District reported two fast chargers for electric cars at the park.

A strip of park runs through the middle of the crescents. The District calls it Alderwood Strip and draws it from Tatlow Avenue to Redwood Street. The map on this page, which uses OpenStreetMap, labels it Anderwood Park. The 1997 inventory describes a linear park that linked the school to Tatlow Avenue, and the Society's writer names two sequoias and a monkey puzzle tree among its old trees. Dogs must be on a leash there.

The Spirit Trail, a shared path for walking and cycling, follows the south edge. The District's trail data draws it beside Welch Street from the reserve boundary to Mackay Creek, past Welch Strip, a narrow park with two tennis courts. A second path, named Norgate in that data, runs up the west side to Sowden Street. Mackay Creek is east of Lloyd Avenue, where Lower Mackay Creek Park has a path beside the water. The District's creek data records pink, chum and coho salmon and cutthroat trout in the creek.