30 influential Toronto leaders pen letter supporting controversial Sidewalk Labs plan

Thestar.com
July 5, 2019
Donovan Vincent

Thirty civic leaders in Toronto have signed their names to a public letter encouraging residents to “welcome and evaluate” Sidewalk Labs’ proposed plans to build a data-driven smart district on the city’s eastern waterfront.

“From our collective perspective as leaders in the fields of urbanism, business, public policy, arts, education, social policy and environmental advocacy, we can each see aspects of this project which represent huge opportunities for our communities and for Toronto,” says the six-paragraph “Dear Toronto” letter signed by influential Toronto leaders.

They including former Toronto mayors Art Eggleton and Barbara Hall, former Ontario Conservative finance minister Janet Ecker, Ryerson University president and vice-chancellor Mohamed Lachemi, and Alan Broadbent, chair and CEO of commercial real estate debt fund Avana Capital, as well as chair and founder of Maytree, a group fighting poverty.

The letter, released Thursday morning, was criticized as a public relations move by a citizens group #BlockSidewalk, which is opposed to the project.

The Toronto Region Board of Trade, a voice for businesses and business leaders, initiated the letter “after hearing from people in our network who wanted to be supportive of the project,” said senior spokesperson Matthew Kofsky.

“We mentioned that we would be pulling this together to Sidewalk Labs and they helped connect us with people in their network who had expressed similar interest,” Kofsky said.

It comes just over a week after Google sister firm Sidewalk Labs unveiled its more than 1,500-page draft master plan for developing a mostly residential “beta site” on a 12-acre parcel of land near Queens Quay E. and Parliament St., as well as a yet-to-be-built district in the Port Lands called Villiers West for an innovation hub that would include Google Canada’s new headquarters.

Sidewalk’s partner on the project, Waterfront Toronto, the tri-government agency responsible for waterfront revitalization and the organization that will ultimate accept or reject the plan, is set in a few days to launch public consultations on the project that will last several weeks.

Thorben Wieditz, a spokesperson for #BlockSidewalk, a Toronto group opposed to the project, said the letter confirms an “ongoing” problem.

“At this point, the ball should be in Waterfront Toronto’s court. Sidewalk Labs’ job is done. They had the option of sitting back and letting Waterfront Toronto lead, frame and guide the public discussion from here on out, but instead the Google affiliate, and the Toronto Region Board of Trade, are doubling down and running an aggressive public relations and marketing campaign,” Wieditz said.

But Shauna Brail, an expert on tech and innovation and an associate professor in University of Toronto’s urban studies program, calls the letter a “strong signal that there are many well-respected organizations, institutions and individuals in the city who support the opportunity to work with Sidewalk.

“We want to be a city that can look to a range of civic institutions for leadership in times of uncertainty. Given how polarizing conversations about the future of Quayside have become, this letter makes an important statement about the value of civic leadership in guiding public reflection and debate,” Brail said.

A number of groups and individuals have weighed in on the pros and cons of the project since Sidewalk won Waterfront Toronto’s request for proposals in 2017.

The signatories to Thursday’s letter said that while issues such as data governance and rapid transit funding for the project are still to be resolved, they believe Sidewalk Labs’ plan holds “many exciting ideas” including the investments in the innovation hub on Villiers, “standard setting” green construction plans (buildings made from timber) and the Google headquarters.

“Toronto has the civic and political strength to say yes and make Quayside work for all its residents,” the letter states.

Broadbent, one of the signatories, believes Toronto is strong enough and mature enough to have a robust debate and come out with something worthwhile.

“I think the Sidewalk proposal will make development in that part of the city happen more quickly and more comprehensively than it would otherwise,” he said.

Broadbent said Sidewalk’s proposal “has prompted an active civic discussion about what kind of development we want, a discussion generally absent when developers build in an area in a piece-by-piece way.

“I added my name to the (letter) to express my support for keeping the discussion going, rather than prematurely abandoning an ambitious effort to develop that area,” Broadbent said in an email to the Star.

Ecker, another who signed the letter, said the project, if approved, would bring a “reputational boost” to the Toronto region, in terms of technology.

“The reputation for the Toronto region and our value proposition as a technology hub gets a big boost with this. Right now our key value proposition in this region is the whole technology space. And so this speaks to that. This is a big reputational boost -- the fact Google wants to do this here. There are a lot of other American cities that would kill to have this project in their backyard,” Ecker said.