Fairview

Fairview stretches from Burrard Street east to Cambie Street, bounded by False Creek to the north and 16th Avenue to the south. With a population of roughly 33,000, it encompasses some of Vancouver's most varied urban landscapes: the high-rise condominiums of False Creek South, the mixed-use Broadway corridor around City Hall, and the older walk-up rental apartments along Hemlock and Granville streets. About 79 percent of households rent, well above the city average, and the housing stock ranges from 1970s-era housing on the False Creek waterfront — roughly 1,800 units on city-leased land, including six co-operatives — to newer mixed-use developments along Cambie Street. The median household income of roughly $69,000 sits near the city-wide median. Fairview is less ethnically diverse than Vancouver as a whole, with about 71 percent of residents speaking English as their first language and Chinese-Canadians making up a significant visible minority.

Fairview was one of only four neighbourhoods where Kennedy Stewart defeated Ken Sim in 2022, alongside Mount Pleasant, Grandview-Woodland, and Strathcona. But the result was closer to a three-way race than in those other Stewart strongholds: Stewart won 39.4 percent to Sim's 33.5 percent, while Colleen Hardwick's TEAM drew 17.6 percent — nearly double her city-wide average of 10 percent. Hardwick, a sitting councillor who had opposed the Broadway Plan, found a receptive audience in a neighbourhood that was ground zero for the densification debate. Stewart won all five polling stations, though the margin at Seaforth Armoury — the northwestern station near the Burrard Bridge — was a single vote, 541 to 540. Provincially, Fairview falls within Vancouver-Fairview, held by NDP MLA George Heyman since 2013, while federally it is primarily within Vancouver Granville.

Municipal Issues

The Broadway Plan was the defining local issue. Approved by council in June 2022 in a 7-4 vote, the plan permits mixed-use towers of up to 30 storeys around the future Broadway-City Hall station and significant densification along the entire Central Broadway corridor. Fairview residents were among the most directly affected — the plan rezoned large swaths of the neighbourhood, including areas of existing low-rise rental housing. Supporters argued it was essential to build rental housing near the new Millennium Line SkyTrain stations under construction along Broadway; opponents, including community groups and heritage advocates, warned that it would displace existing affordable rental tenants and destroy the neighbourhood's established low-rise character. The False Creek South housing community faced additional uncertainty as its long-term leases on city-owned land approached expiration, raising questions about whether residents would be displaced by market redevelopment.

The Millennium Line Broadway Extension, a $2.83-billion SkyTrain project under construction from VCC-Clark to Arbutus Street, was physically transforming the neighbourhood during the 2022 campaign. Construction disruption along Broadway — road closures, traffic detours, dust, and noise — had been ongoing since major construction began in 2021 and was a daily irritation for residents and businesses alike. Several small businesses on Broadway reported significant revenue losses. At the same time, the project promised to make Fairview one of the best transit-connected neighbourhoods in Metro Vancouver upon completion, with three new stations within or adjacent to the neighbourhood. Hardwick's TEAM opposed the Broadway Plan but not the SkyTrain itself, while ABC supported both the transit extension and the densification it enabled. Stewart's narrow plurality in Fairview reflected a neighbourhood genuinely cross-pressured between supporting transit-oriented growth and resisting the scale of change the Broadway Plan entailed.