Council passes motion calling for due diligence on planned data centre expansion in southwest Scarborough

By MATTHEW STEPHENS

Scarborough Southwest Councillor Parthi Kandavel’s motion to ensure the city does its due diligence before approving the development of data centres in his ward was passed unanimously at Toronto Council’s meeting last week.

The members motion forwarded to Toronto Council on July 31 was a result of a slew of concerns from Scarborough Southwest residents concerned that the planned expansion of the STACK Infrastructure data centre at 3650 Danforth Ave. (northwest corner of Birchmount Road) could have a negative impact on the surrounding community.

“Residents have raised serious and thoughtful concerns about the project’s scale, its electricity and water demands, noise and backup generators, the level of local employment and community benefit, and the fact that a facility of this magnitude is proceeding through delegated Site Plan Approval without a public meeting or a vote of City Council,” reads the background file in Kandavel’s motion.

As part of his motion, the city’s Executive Director Development Review will be tasked with advising the councillor for Scarborough Southwest of any future applications for data centre expansion, as well as the ongoing expansion at 3650 Danforth Ave.

The Executive Director Development Review will also be tasked with reporting back to Toronto Council in response to community concerns related to data centre expansion at 3650 Danforth Ave., including noise studies, community benefits, as well as electricity, water, and financial costs.

With Canada’s National AI Strategy stressing the importance of Canadians having sovereign control over critical AI infrastructure, Kandavel’s motion questions what “due diligence,” has been taken by the city to ensure Canadian’s user data is safeguarded, and whether the protocols of the application at 3650 Danforth Ave. are in alignment with the federal government’s stance on artificial intelligence data centres.

For more information regarding Kandavel’s motion, please go to https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2026.MM43.75.

In a news release on July 31, the Toronto Chapter of Common Horizon (which on its website says it is a group of young workers living in Canada’s largest city, organizing to fight corporate greed and build a people’s agenda) said Toronto Council needs to take stronger action against the data centre expansion at 3650 Danforth Ave. than was done by passing Kandavel’s motion.

The plan is to expand the data centre’s capacity from eight megawatts (MW) to 56 megawatts. A megawatt is one million watts of electrical power.

A rally by members of Common Horizon Toronto and Climate Fast on July 29 at Toronto City Hall had called for councillors to pass a moratorium on data centre construction in the city.

In its news release, Common Horizons Toronto said questions about the proposed expansion at the Danforth Avenue site have been asked for more than a year by community members who are concerned about the impacts.

“We’re glad to see my – and literally thousands of other constituents – concerns heard by City Council, but we need to take action to intervene in the planned STACK expansion, to find out how this will impact our lives, the natural environment, utilities, real estate, taxes, or jobs in the neighbourhood,” said Scarborough Southwest resident Diane Holmlund in the news release.

“We need accountability, and we want transparency.”

For information on Common Horizons Toronto, please go to https://actionnetwork.org/events/chc-toronto-launch?nowrapper=true&referrer=&source=

• With files from Alan Shackleton