OTTAWA — Though plans to make the former Odawa Native Friendship Centre on Scott Street the centrepiece of a condo development are on hold, the city’s planners want to rezone the building for offices. It’s a partial step toward the redevelopment of the site, which was a school before the aboriginal centre took it over. Developer Morley Hoppner filed plans with the city last April for a condo complex incorporating the 80-year-old building — it would be turned into luxury units, with a 19-storey tower added next to it — but they’re on hold and there isn’t much other use for the property now that the Odawa centre has moved out. The land is zoned now for institutional uses, which isn’t much use if no institution owns it or wants to use it. “By rehabilitating the former school, it allows for the long term maintenance of a significant building in this community,” says a report bound for city council’s planning committee next Tuesday. What happens on the rest of the property is a decision that’s been sucked into the process of devising a new community-design plan for the part of Scott Street that runs between Hintonburg and Mechanicsville, including the Odawa site. It’s coming along (a draft is due to be presented Nov. 13 at a public meeting at the Hintonburg Community Centre) but won’t be done till late this year or early 2014. “The applicant has been and continues to be involved in the CDP process and intends to work through this process through to its conclusions, which will help determine the eventual development program for the site,” the planning committee report says. “Once the CDP has been approved, the applicant will proceed with proposals for the remainder of the site and required development approvals.” In the meantime, putting offices into the old Odawa building would give it some life and won’t prejudge anything else that might happen to the property under the community-design plan, the report says. Read More ...