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The new Quayside smart city being developed in Toronto by Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Alphabet, is probably the most talked about smart city project currently in development. Last week, a decision was made to significantly scale back the project.
The company’ s initial plans referred to a ‘˜model smart city’ , and a new approach to future urban developments. The idea had been to overhaul the entire eastern waterfront, developing two districts which would have been used to test multiple projects and development ideas that the team unveiled for Toronto.
In the summer of 2018, the new plans were confined to the district of Quayside, conceived as an interconnected smart neighborhood for the city of Toronto. The project would include 12 timber towers with 2,500 residential units total, 1,000 of which would be rented at below-market rates and combine offices, shops and residences.
The recent decision to scale back the project even further came as a result of a unanimous vote from the government agency responsible for the area, which reduces the original 190-acre plan to just 12 acres. This scaling back comes amid recent privacy concerns with the company’ s plans to collect data from the project, as part of its smart city initiatives. According to the New York Times, this caused local residents and advocates to speak against the project.
As a result, the government agency Waterfront Toronto is now requiring that any information collected by the development is treated like a public asset. In addition, it will consult further with the public and conduct a formal evaluation of the plan, which will determine whether the project can go forward.
The original article and the picture used here was found on arch daily.