The stakes on the waterfront
The Sidewalk Labs’ proposal to turn a swath of Toronto’s derelict waterfront into a vibrant neighbourhood is not dead, not officially anyway.
But Premier Doug Ford has driven a mighty big nail into its coffin.
It’s a “terrible deal for the taxpayers,” Ford pronounced recently.
Suddenly the critics of Sidewalk Labs, especially those on the left, seem happy to embrace the premier’s judgment about what’s best for the waterfront.
But the idea that Ford has suddenly adopted their concerns about personal privacy and their fears that a Google-affiliated company will run roughshod over the public interest is beyond belief. Ford has not become their champion.
It’s far more likely that the premier is answering the rallying call of the local development industry looking to get a rival out of town. Because Sidewalk Labs is a terrible deal for traditional developers. Indeed, that’s one reason it has real potential to be good for the rest of us.
Beneath the heated sidewalks, wooden highrises and public spaces that adapt to the weather, this is a plan to develop an entire neighbourhood at once. And the very things that provide the most potential for public benefits — its size and ambition — are what the local development industry may fear the most.
Most developers can’t compete to develop the 12-acre Quayside site, or the 19-acre Villiers West site Sidewalk also included in its proposal. But they’d each like a parcel or two where they can plunk down the banal condos they have so much experience building and know they can easily sell in the insatiable Toronto market.
It could be even worse for them if Sidewalk Labs actually managed to pull off its grand vision of environmentally sustainable buildings with a welcome share of rental housing, family-sized units and greater affordability. That would forever raise the bar for what’s possible (and expected) for developments in Toronto.
It’s hardly a surprise, then, that the Waterfront Toronto board, packed with development insiders as it is thanks to Ford’s recent appointments, seems more determined to find ways to scuttle the deal than give it careful consideration.
And, certainly, Sidewalk Labs has had missteps along the way, making it easier to poke holes than to negotiate a way forward.
Waterfront Toronto and its current board is a long way off the heady days when three levels of government banded together to realize what was supposed to be this country’s most ambitious urban renewal project. And they’re being pressured from the right and the left to kill the project for very different but equally shortsighted reasons.
Thankfully, there still are some civic and business leaders urging big thinking.
If by some miracle this proposal survives Oct. 31, the first opportunity to kill it over unresolved issues such as rapid transit, it’s possible the final plan could disappoint. That’s a possibility in any deal.
But we already know what we’ll get with the status quo. That’s a steady march eastward of uninspired highrise towers along the waterfront, no rapid transit in the foreseeable future and the odd patch of green space.
That’s not just what has happened in the past; it’s what is happening right now on building site after building site across the city. Here and there, the city has managed to get a few innovative projects, but changes the Ford government has made to development rules (with more still to come) means getting public benefits in deals will be even harder in the future.
Unless Sidewalk Labs manages to get the province on board, it will be sent packing to roll out its plans somewhere else, somewhere willing to risk a little to try something new in the hopes of getting better outcomes. And us? We’ll be left with more of the same. And what a shame that will be.