Hintonburg Connection [175 Carruthers Ave] | 53m | 17 fl | Completed

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Development docs:
http://app01.ottawa.ca/postingplans/appDetails.jsf?lang=en&appId=__9JK1EW

Promised nine-storey zoning, Hintonburg site developer wants 19

By David Reevely, OTTAWA CITIZEN April 23, 2013 7:07 PM

OTTAWA — A builder wants to construct a 19-storey tower on the site of the Odawa Native Friendship Centre in Hintonburg, a site the city’s planning department has previously said was suitable for a building less than half that tall.

Discussions about the future of the property at Stirling Avenue and Scott Street have already been controversial. As the Odawa centre considered moving out about two years ago, it hired planning consultants from the private firm FoTenn to help it get the best price for its property. The site is zoned for an institution with a maximum height of about four storeys. After a “pre-consultation” about the possibilities in late 2011, city planner Kersten Nitsche wrote to FoTenn that the city would back a rezoning that would allow a nine-storey building on the property if the new owner met particular conditions about parking and setbacks and preserving the former school the Odawa centre occupies.

At the time, planning general manager John Moser acknowledged that the promise was a little too definitive, though the point of a pre-consultation is to give builders an idea of what planning rules could allow.

“We’re giving them a box to play in,” Coun. Peter Hume, the chairman of city council’s planning committee, said at the time. “We’re saying, ‘We’d look at nine storeys. If you want to come back and give us a 15-storey building, don’t bother.’”

Now the actual application is in from developer Morley Hoppner and architect Barry Hobin — and different planning consultants, Lloyd Phillips and Jill Stewart of Lloyd Phillips & Associates. It proposes the 19-storey tower, a renovation of the Odawa building into luxury condos with two extra floors added for penthouse units and some townhouses facing Carruthers Avenue, the next street west. The whole thing would be called “Hintonburg Station.”

The Citizen couldn’t immediately reach Hume to find out what he thinks of the gap between the planning department’s views and the application.

The site is just a couple of short blocks from Tunney’s Pasture with its transit station and thousands of government jobs, and it’s right on Scott Street, a major artery, the application says. Putting commercial uses on the ground floor, probably stores, would add some life to a pedestrian dead zone, too.

The city is working on a plan for such a revitalization, having hired urban design guru George Dark to come up with a plan for Scott Street and much of nearby Mechanicsville. He just started, though, and the city will likely have to decide on Morley Hoppner’s proposal before he’s finished.

No date is set for a planning committee vote; the city’s planners are working on an assessment of the proposal.

The Odawa Centre announced in late March that it’s moving to City Centre, near the O-Train tracks south of Albert Street.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Pr...+site+developer+wants/8284437/story.html