(10-06-2018, 08:16 PM)tomh009 Wrote: The current Google Sidewalk project is in Toronto, but this is a bigger issue that can eventually affect every city. Whose sidewalks will these be? Who will benefit from them? Jim Balsillie asks some pointed questions in the Globe article.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-sidewalk-toronto-is-not-a-smart-city/

Quote:Sidewalk Toronto has only one beneficiary, and it is not Toronto

(…) The most insightful comments during the public announcement came when Eric Schmidt, Google’s former executive chair, said they had realized their long-running dream for “someone to give us a city and put us in charge.” He also thanked Canadian taxpayers for paying, creating and transferring the core artificial-intelligence technology he credits for Alphabet’s success, making it the world’s third most valuable corporation. (…)

Quote:Google’s expansive vision to plan and build communities and transit across Toronto’s east waterfront — in exchange for a cut of property tax and development revenues — is a non-starter, the Ontario government says.

At Queen’s Park, a senior government official told the Star’s Robert Benzie that Google sister company Sidewalk Labs’s plans — revealed by the Star’s Marco Chown Oved on Thursday — is a non-starter.

“There is no way on God’s green earth that Premier Doug Ford would ever sign off on handing away nearly 500 acres of prime waterfront property to a foreign multinational company that has been unable to reassure citizens their privacy and data would be protected,” confided the high-ranking Progressive Conservative insider.
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A Sidewalk Labs presentation, prepared for Google last fall, show that Waterfront Toronto’s preferred development partner for the 12-acre Quayside district at Queens Quay and Parliament St. has bigger ambitions, for redevelopment on 350 acres in the Port Lands area — an area almost 30 times larger than Quayside — by financing underground infrastructure and a light rail line.

Internal documents obtained by the Star show Sidewalk Labs plans to make the case that it is “entitled to . . . a share in the uptick in land value on the entire geography . . . a share of developer charges and incremental tax revenue on all land.”

These future revenues, based on the anticipated increase in land value once homes and offices are built on the derelict Port Lands, are estimated to be $6 billion over the next 30 years. Even a small portion of this could amount to a large, recurring revenue stream diverted from the city into private hands.

Reaction to the secret plan was swift and negative from several councillors when the Star broke the news Thursday evening.

Kristyn Wong-Tam, who represents downtown Ward 13 Toronto Centre, tweeted: “A tech giant never having built transit + city infrastructure anywhere, or even pitched a dime for the $1.25B for Port Lands flood protection, has the audacity to stake claim for future land value, property taxes + development charges on land they don’t own.”