The Board of Aldermen in New Haven, Conn., has approved a zoning change that will enable Yale University to move forward with a $600 million plan to build two new residential colleges.
The university says each of the colleges will have about 220,000 square feet of space. The new facilities will provide living space for about 800 additional students, which would increase the size of Yale’s undergraduate enrollment by 15 percent. Yale says that about 20,000 students apply for 1,300 spots in its freshman class, and the additional residential colleges would enable the university to meet its goal of accommodating more students.
Yale’s residential college system, which was established in 1933, creates small groups of students and faculty that become close-knit communities. Construction of the two new facilities is expected to be finished in 2015 and will be the university’s 13th and 14th residential colleges.
