Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto are set Monday to publicly release Sidewalk’s proposed master plan, a massive blueprint detailing precisely how the firm intends to create a tech-driven neighbourhood on Toronto’s waterfront.

The site in question is Quayside, a 12-acre parcel of land near Queens Quay E. and Parliament St. currently home to aging warehouses, parking lots and unused space.

Manhattan-based Sidewalk Labs, an urban innovation firm that is a sister company of Google, wants to turn this area into a “test bed” or “beta site” that would feature a mixed-use development consisting primarily of thousands of new residential units, as well as retail and office spaces.

The project envisions as many as 12 new buildings in the district, all made of timber.

The project would also use sensors and data collected in public settings, Sidewalk has said.

The release of the document, which will be available on Waterfront Toronto’s website in the afternoon, marks the beginning of what promises to be a lengthy process that will include rounds of public consultations and a review of the master plan by parties such as Waterfront Toronto — Sidewalk Labs’ partner on the project — councillors and staff at city hall, along with input from politicians of all stripes at the provincial and federal levels.

Waterfront Toronto must approve the master plan before any work on the project can go forward.

The document has been a long time in the making — more than 18 months — since Sidewalk Labs won the request for proposals in the fall of 2017 that was issued by its “innovation and funding partner” Waterfront Toronto, a tri-government agency responsible for redeveloping the waterfront.

Some elements of the plan have already been revealed.

In its 2017 “project vision” document, Sidewalk Labs has promised to help create a neighbourhood that will be a “bustling digital and civic workshop open to all.”

Sidewalk says when people look around Quayside once the project is completed they might see “a self-driving shuttle dropping off passengers during a test ride,” or a community group using a digital kiosk to provide feedback on a local city planning issue.

“It will be a global test bed where people can use data about how the neighbourhood works to make it work better” — in other words using data and technology to improve efficiency in the neighbourhood.

The project has been enormously controversial. Critics, including a group called #Blocksidewalk, which wants to stop the Sidewalk Labs project, are concerned the plans to collect data will infringe on the privacy rights of residents who move into the neighbourhood, work there or pass through it.

To quell concerns, Sidewalk has put forward a lengthy document of “digital governance proposals” pertaining to the data collected at Quayside — chief among the proposals is a promise not to control the data collected at Quayside. Rather, a third-party “civic data trust” should be in charge of the data, Sidewalk says.

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The Star published a story in February based on leaked documents that showed Sidewalk Labs wants to expand into the Port Lands and finance a new waterfront LRT upfront and be paid back later through tax revenues.

Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff later stated that Quayside and any Sidewalk Labs projects in the Port Lands likely won’t be viable without a new LRT line.

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