These days, any luxury mega-project worth its salt is bound to lightly lard its housing components with ‘affordability.’ Sidewalk Labs1 is no exception, pressing the ‘affordable’ button to claim its just rewards in its futuristic Toronto Smart City partnership proposal.
Sidewalks’ partner is Waterfront Toronto, which is jointly controlled by the City of Toronto, The Province of Ontario and The Federal Government of Canada2. Waterfront Toronto is presumably meant to go all gooey-eyed over the rampant amount of affordable housing in the project. This in turn will cause it to add cash or concessions to the cash or concessions it is already expected to pledge for being allowed to participate in such space-age neighbourhood concept from the far-out folks who are almost but not quite Google.
40% affordable housing! trumpets Sidewalk Labs.
But still your beating hearts, folks.
Jennifer Keesmaat, former Director of Planning at the City of Toronto and recent mayoralty candidate, ran a practical rule over Sidewalk Labs’ use of the term ‘affordable.’
Her conclusion? In Toronto’s currently overheated housing market, the real-life figure for Sidewalk Labs’ project is actually closer to 5% affordable!
Toronto Smart City sounds like a 95% luxury housing project to us. The city already has a booming luxury housing industry receiving no special concessions. When it comes to the Sidewalk Labs proposal, just what’s in it for Toronto anyway?
Read more in Toronto Life: Sidewalk’s Affordable Housing Isn’t Really Affordable.
