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Guelph For RentRentals (opens DistrictIQ in a new tab)

Guelph, Ontario

Renting in Downtown

Downtown is a 1.2 km² area of Guelph, home to about 3,460 people at the 2021 Census. It is a majority-renter area: 66.2% of households rented their home, and 88.1% of homes are apartments. Inside the boundary: 1 school, 5 licensed child care facilities, 10 parks, 55 transit stops.

1.2 km²3,460 residents (2021)1 school55 transit stops

The boundary this page uses

Boundary and area name published by the City of Guelph.

Everything counted below — schools, licensed child care, parks, transit stops — is counted inside that boundary, so the figures describe Downtown rather than a radius around a point.

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – City of Guelph. Layer retrieved September 4, 2026.

Who lives here

From the 5 Statistics Canada dissemination areas whose centre falls inside the boundary. Rates are population-weighted; counts are summed.

3,460
Residents (2021)
66.2%
Households that rent
34.1% own
88.1%
Homes that are apartments
$64,986
Median household income
2020 income, 2021 Census
32.3%
Households with children
38.0
Median age
1.7
Average household size
Age profile
  • 0 - 4 years old110 · 3.2%
  • 5 - 9 years old70 · 2%
  • 10 - 19 years old140 · 4%
  • 20 - 34 years old1,280 · 36.8%
  • 35 - 49 years old715 · 20.5%
  • 50 - 54 years old185 · 5.3%
  • 55 - 64 years old385 · 11.1%
  • 65 - 69 years old190 · 5.5%
  • 70 - 79 years old300 · 8.6%
  • 80 - 84 years old70 · 2%
  • 85+ years old35 · 1%

How Downtown compares with Guelph

66.2% of households in Downtown rented their home at the 2021 Census, against 34.3% across Guelph. This is one of the parts of Guelph where renting is the norm rather than the exception, so purpose-built and converted rental housing is a normal part of the streetscape.

Both figures are the share of households that rent, from the 2021 Census. The Downtown figure is aggregated from the dissemination areas inside the boundary; the Guelph figure is the city-wide count Statistics Canada publishes. Census figures describe 2021, and neighbourhoods change — treat them as context rather than as today’s market.

Source: Statistics Canada, Census of Population, 2021. Adapted under the Statistics Canada Open Licence. Sum (population, age bands) or population-weighted mean (rates, medians) of the 2021 dissemination areas whose centre lies inside the municipal boundary.

Schools

1 publicly funded school sits inside the boundary. Being inside an area is not the same as being assigned to it — attendance areas are set by the boards and must be checked per address.

Just outside the boundary

Source: Ontario Ministry of Education, School Information and Student Demographics (2024–2025). Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Ontario.

Licensed child care

5 licensed facilities are located inside the boundary. A licence is not a vacancy — contact operators directly about waiting lists and fees.

FacilityTypeProgrammes
Ela - Sacred Heart125 Huron StreetChild Care CentreBefore school, After school
Lilliput Land Co-Operative Nursery School161 Norfolk StreetChild Care CentreHalf day(Less than 6 hours in a day)
Wellington Early Learning Centres - Sacred Heart125 Huron StreetChild Care CentreBefore school, After school
Workside Early Childhood Education Centre99 Woolwich StreetChild Care CentreFull Day(6 hours or more in a day)
Ymca Of Three Rivers Child Care - Central97 Dublin StreetChild Care CentreBefore school, After school

Source: Ontario Ministry of Education, Licensed child care facilities in Ontario (31 July 2026 snapshot); locations matched to the City of Guelph’s open address register. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Ontario.

Parks, transit and public facilities

Counted inside the boundary from the City of Guelph's own open data.

10
Parks inside the boundary
4.7 hectares in total
55
Guelph Transit stops
0.1 km
Nearest GO station
Guelph Central GO

Largest green spaces

  • GOLDIE MILL PARK · 1.5 ha
  • JOHN GALT PARK · 1.3 ha
  • HERITAGE PARK · 0.7 ha
  • MARKET SQUARE PARK · 0.4 ha
  • RIVERWALK PARK · 0.4 ha
  • TRAFALGAR SQUARE · 0.3 ha

Public facilities inside the boundary

Court
ONTARIO COURT OF JUSTICE - PROVINCIAL OFFENCES — 59 CARDEN ST
Arena
SLEEMAN CENTRE — 50 WOOLWICH ST
Arts
RIVER RUN CENTRE — 35 WOOLWICH ST
Museum
MUSEUM — 52 NORFOLK ST
Administration
CITY HALL — 1 CARDEN ST
Library
GUELPH PUBLIC LIBRARY — 100 NORFOLK ST
Railway Station
GUELPH CENTRAL STATION — 79 CARDEN STREET

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – City of Guelph.

Renting in Downtown

Guelph Transit runs a network built around a downtown hub, so cross-town trips often route through the centre. Guelph Central Station downtown carries both GO and VIA trains on the Kitchener corridor, and Highway 401 runs south of the city. Distances here are short, but a transfer can still dominate a journey — check the real trip at the time you would travel.

Before you sign

Walk the block at the hour you would actually come home. Check what is included in the rent, how utilities are billed, what parking costs, and where the nearest stop for the trips you make daily is. Ontario’s standard lease and the Residential Tenancies Act apply here as everywhere in the province — the renter guide covers what to check.

Common questions

Do many people rent in Downtown?
At the 2021 Census, 66.2% of households in Downtown were renters and 88.1% of homes were apartments. Those figures come from the 5 Statistics Canada dissemination areas inside the municipal boundary, so they describe this area rather than Guelph as a whole.
Which schools are in Downtown?
1 publicly funded school sits inside the boundary: Central Public School. Being inside the area is not the same as being assigned to it — attendance areas are set by the school boards and must be checked per address.
How is transit in Downtown?
55 Guelph Transit stops are inside the boundary, and Guelph Central GO is about 0.1 km away in a straight line. Check the actual trip at the times you travel — stop counts say nothing about frequency.
What green space does Downtown have?
The municipality's parks layer records 10 parks inside the boundary, about 4.7 hectares in total, plus roughly 3.4 km of mapped trails.

Nearby neighbourhoods

Straight-line distance between the centres of each municipal boundary.

Keep researching

Where this page’s data comes from

Full method notes, refresh cadence and the list of data this site deliberately does not publish are on the data page.