Port Lands vision always anticipated expansion, MPs told
Waterfront Toronto officials say they knew of potential to develop beyond Quayside site
A senior Waterfront Toronto director told a hearing in Ottawa that it was known all along that Sidewalk Labs might need to go beyond redeveloping a 12-acre parcel near Parliament St. and Queens Quay and expand its vision to 350 acres in the Port Lands.
Meg Davis, Waterfront Toronto’s chief development officer and Kristina Verner, vice-president of innovation, sustainability and prosperity for the corporation appeared for before the federal ethics committee’s Liberal-majority standing committee on access to information, privacy and ethics Thursday afternoon.
The two were asked about the corporation’s partnership with Google sister firm Sidewalk Labs to develop a proposal for a data driven residential neighbourhood on the waterfront.
Politicians at the local, provincial and federal level and the general public understood the development proposal was only for a12 acres parcel of land called Quayside, but last week the Star revealed Sidewalk wants to broaden that to encompass the Port Lands — developing new neighbourhoods and a new light rail transit line throughout the entire area and getting a share of the property taxes, development fees and other benefits from increased land values — money that would normally go to the city’s coffers.
Standing committee member, and Conservative MP Peter Kent suggested to Davis that senior politicians and the general public in the GTA and beyond are now viewing the Sidewalk proposal as a “high profit real estate property development project rather than a technology partnership.”
Davis replied that the goal has always been to “build out the Quayside property.”
“This is not a witch hunt. This is about making sure that a huge project with potentially enormous benefits to the city of Toronto is done right” CHARLIE ANGUS NDP MP
Davis added that the original March 2017 RFP (request for proposals) for the project — which Sidewalk later won — envisioned an initiative that would be climate positive and improve transit and infrastructure on the waterfront.
She added the RFP and subsequent July 2018 plan development agreement between Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk allowed for “thinking at scale” beyond Quayside — in other words an expanded vision.
“You need district energy systems, you need different electric grids, transportation systems. What does it take to get to these lofty objectives,” said Davis, adding, “12 acres probably doesn’t get you there.” This echoed a statement Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff made to the Star last week in the story about the Port Lands revelations.
“We were looking for innovative opportunities to help fund a waterfront LRT system,” Davis told the standing committee. But committee member and NDP MP Charlie Angus disagreed with Davis’ version of events.
“The first map (in the RFP) was 12 acres. Quayside — but then the plan development agreement was for the whole designated waterfront area. Isn’t that rather unusual for one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in North America?” Angus asked Davis tersely.
“People who bid (on the RFP) thought it was only 12 acres. (That) was the understanding from the get-go,” Angus told Davis.
She replied that the “designated waterfront area” in the plan development agreement goes beyond Quayside. A map in the agreement shows an area that takes in the Port Lands and also stretches west past the Rogers Centre.
A press release in July explaining the agreement says that the final plan for Quayside “may also bring forward proposals that work best at scale.”
The RFP does reference the potential for expansion.
One section says: “It may be beneficial to advance the solu- tions, processes and partnerships proven successful through the (Quayside) project to subsequent developments on the eastern waterfront.”
But Toronto developer Julie Di Lorenzo, who quit the Waterfront Toronto board last summer over her objections to the Sidewalk project, said after Thursday’s committee meeting it was always her belief as a board member that the deal with Sidewalk pertained only to Quayside.
She says she was a bit stunned to hear Davis embrace the expansion idea.
“From my time on the board, I was surprised to hear Waterfront Toronto representatives describing the (master plan Sidewalk is working on) as anything more than the Quayside lands,” Di Lorenzo told the Star, noting that the city of Toronto’s own web page on the project refers only to Quayside.
Davis pointed out that the proposal — Sidewalk is expected to put forward draft and final master plans later this year — must get approval from Waterfront Toronto and the city of Toronto.
Any agreements regarding development charges, or tax sharing or anything stemming from land values would also need city of Toronto approvals, she added.
Following the meeting Angus, the standing committee member, said he still has many questions.
“I don’t know how you put forward a project that in the long- term is about a major real estate development for the entire waterfront and not make that clear from the get-go. I have that concern,” he said in a telephone interview from Ottawa.
“And they talk about, you need economies of scale and transit and you need to do it for climate change. All that might be true but that’s not what the conversation was for the RFP,” he added.
Sidewalk Labs is expected to appear before the committee in March.
“This is not a witch hunt. This is about making sure that a huge project with potentially enormous benefits to the city of Toronto is done right,” Angus said.
“And that’s gotta be the focus all along, whether it’s Sidewalk Labs or someone else. We just have to make sure that due diligence is done every step of the way,” he added.
Meanwhile, at Toronto city hall, councillors voiced support for a motion put forward by councillor Joe Cressy calling for Toronto to establish city-wide rules and regulations for how data can be collected at Quayside and other smart city projects.
Councillor Jennifer McKelvie said: “Nobody cares about their privacy until they feel the pain of losing it. We should protect privacy ... and we should implement strong safeguards and standards over the way the data of our voters is collected.”
“I have long been worried about how intrusive the data tracking could be at Quayside,” added councillor Paula Fletcher.
“It’s time to put in place some very strict parameters, clear guidelines, around data and ask (on behalf of residents) ‘what do you really need to know about me?’ ”
“People who bid (on the proposal) thought it was only 12 acres. (That) was the understanding from the get-go.” CHARLIE ANGUS NDP MP