Sorting the spin from the facts: how big can the surveilling city that Sidewalk Labs plans for Toronto get?

Cory published a writeup of my research showing Google offshoot Sidewalk Labs plan to build a surveilling city in Toronto involves a much, much larger chunk of land than publicly disclosed (in fact about 2,600 acres of prime Toronto waterfront!). It flushed out a response from the high-priced US PR firm Berlin Rosen, apparently acting on behalf of Sidewalk Labs:

Hi there

I am reaching out about the above mentioned article. The image that accompanies the article is a picture of designated waterfront area with Quayside, specifically, highlighted. Sidewalk Torontos MIDP [Master Innovation Development Plan] will address Quayside only, it does not expand across the entire waterfront designated area as the article states.

Can you please correct this within the article?

Thanks so much in advance!Molly

To support her assertion that my findings are incorrect, Berlin Rosen's Molly Henderson sent along a misleading FAQ prepared by Waterfront Toronto to diffuse mounting concerns over the City of Toronto's Master Innovation and Development Plan (MIDP).

To understand how the FAQ obscures the nature of the project, consider this sentence: "The only commitment at this time is to a process to create a plan for Quayside that will meet the objectives set out in the RFP [Request for Proposals]." On a first reading, this seems to imply that private city-within-a-city will be limited to Quayside, the 12-acre site that everyone has been talking about to date.

But then, later, the FAQ leaves wiggle room regarding the true size of the slated area to be "developed": "Any ideas proposed more broadly than Quayside must be in service of achieving the shared goals of the project and be supported by a business case demonstrating the need for scale to achieve the objectives."

Now, if you look at the map on page 42 of the Plan Development Agreement (PDA) struck between Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto, which is the focus of Corys Dec. Read the rest