South Cambie

South Cambie is one of Vancouver's smallest local planning areas, with a population of roughly 8,000, bounded by 16th Avenue to the north, 41st Avenue to the south, Oak Street to the west, and Cambie Street to the east. Despite its modest size, it is undergoing one of the most dramatic transformations in the city, driven by the Cambie Corridor Plan and the Canada Line SkyTrain running beneath Cambie Street along its eastern edge. The housing stock has been rapidly evolving — the original single-family homes and duplexes that still make up about 58 percent of dwellings are increasingly being replaced by townhouses and low-rise apartments, which already account for roughly 38 percent. About 60 percent of households are owner-occupied, and the median household income exceeds $116,000, placing South Cambie among the city's more affluent neighbourhoods. Chinese-Canadians make up about 30 percent of residents, with South Asians at roughly 5 percent.

South Cambie produced one of the most competitive results on Vancouver's west side. Ken Sim won 49.0 percent — 2,025 of 4,136 valid ballots — running slightly below his city-wide average of 50 percent. Stewart took 32.1 percent, above his city-wide 29 percent, while Hardwick's TEAM drew 11.5 percent, also above her city-wide 10 percent. The neighbourhood had just two polling locations, both at Douglas Park Community Centre, making it one of the smaller electorates in the city. Provincially, South Cambie falls within Vancouver-Langara, a BC Liberal stronghold held by Michael Lee from 2017 until BC United suspended its campaign in 2024, after which the NDP's Sunita Dhir narrowly won the seat by 419 votes over the Conservatives. Federally, it is within Vancouver South, held by Liberal Harjit Sajjan from 2015 until his retirement ahead of the 2025 election.

Municipal Issues

The Cambie Corridor Plan was the defining local issue. Designed to guide growth along the Canada Line corridor over 30 years, the plan aims to more than double the corridor's population and add over 30,000 new homes. Phase 3 of the plan, approved in 2018, pre-zoned additional single-family lots for townhomes — accelerating development without requiring individual rezoning applications. The Oakridge Municipal Town Centre at Cambie and 41st, on South Cambie's southeast corner, was designated as a priority area for transit-oriented densification. The massive Oakridge Park redevelopment — a 28-acre, five-million-square-foot project replacing the old Oakridge Centre mall with over 3,300 residential units and a nine-acre public park — was under construction and generating significant disruption at the Cambie and 41st intersection. TEAM's above-average 11.5 percent in South Cambie likely reflects the particular salience of densification concerns in a neighbourhood where single-family homes were being replaced in real time.

The Little Mountain social housing redevelopment, in the adjacent Riley Park neighbourhood east of Cambie Street near Queen Elizabeth Park, was a visible symbol of stalled housing promises. The BC government sold the 15-acre site to Holborn Properties in 2008 for $334 million, but by 2022 — fourteen years later — only 53 of the promised 282 replacement social housing units had been completed and a further 62 were under construction. The original residents had been relocated years earlier, and the site sat largely empty. The contrast between the ambitious densification plans for the Cambie Corridor and the decade-long failure to replace demolished social housing at Little Mountain contributed to broader cynicism about development processes that resonated in a neighbourhood experiencing rapid physical change.