Google’s sister company Sidewalk Labs has submitted the master plan for its smart city project dubbed Quayside, but Waterfront Toronto won’t publicly release it for another week.
The Toronto Star reported that the Master Innovation and Development Plan (MIDP) is said to be more than 1,000 pages and was handed over to Waterfront Toronto on June 17th.
The smart city would be built on a 12-acre plot of land in the Waterfront area of downtown Toronto and would be equipped with residential and commercial plots.
The MIDP must first be approved by Waterfront Toronto and most likely other levels of government before any construction begins.
Stephen Diamond, chairman of the board of directors for Waterfront Toronto, told the Star that the company will follow a “public process.”
“Along with you [the public], Waterfront Toronto’s board, staff and independent consultants will review Sidewalk Labs’ proposed plan to determine under which conditions, if any, [the Sidewalk Labs master plan] could work for Toronto,” Diamond said.
The project has been under scrutiny since news of Waterfront Toronto picking Sidewalk Labs to develop the concept. Some have indicated that Sidewalk Labs had an unfair advantage in presenting a proposal and had access to politicians beforehand.
Documents have also revealed that Sidewalk Labs wanted to benefit from the potential increase in the value of the land after other developers built their projects.
Scrutiny around data collection also remained as Sidewalk Labs never made it clear how exactly they will collect data and information from residents and who would own that data.
MIDP to be made public in a week
Diamond indicated Waterfront Toronto intends to make the MIDP public and will have public consultations, the first to be held after four weeks of receiving the document, The Star reported.
“It is Waterfront Toronto’s responsibility to act in the public interest. We take this responsibility extremely seriously and we know that you are relying on us to fulfil it … We are committed to working with all of you to do exactly that,” Diamond added.
Keerthana Rang, a spokesperson for Sidewalk Labs, said the company has been “hard at work developing a plan for a new neighbourhood.”
“This plan is the result of consultation with more than 20,000 Torontonians. We are proud to reach such a significant milestone in this project and we are honoured to have the opportunity to present our vision of how the public and private sectors can work together to do something extraordinary on the waterfront, which we hope will set a new global standard for city-building,” Rang said.
The Alphabet-owned Google affiliate began working with Waterfront Toronto after it was solidified in October 2017.
The Waterfront Toronto board of directors later approved a Plan Development Agreement (PDA) with Sidewalk Labs in July 2018. As a result of the 58-page PDA, Sidewalk Labs said that it would invest approximately $40 million USD (roughly $52.87 million CAD) to develop the Master Innovation and Development Plan (MIDP).
Source: The Toronto Star
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