RPInsider

This email is from last week, but notable nonetheless.  The President’s new home will be built in the footprint of her current home in order to bypass zoning restrictions.  It will be 9600 square feet, and work will begin in the spring.  This news comes after the first house was denied, and the issue faces a fair amount of criticism from other news outlets, including the Times Union.

To:   The Rensselaer Community
From: Claude Rounds, Vice President for Administration
Date: February 25, 2010
Re:   President’s House Project

I write to provide you with an update on the plans for a new Rensselaer
president’s house. You will recall from an article in Inside Rensselaer
in December that our Board of Trustees has made generous personal
donations to fund the full cost of the new building.

This will be the first facility in our history built specifically to
provide appropriate living and functional space for Rensselaer’s
president. It will provide living quarters for the president’s family,
along with additional space to facilitate many official duties of the
chief executive, including gatherings with guests and visitors,
receptions, and fund-raising events.

Revisions to the original proposed location and site plan were required
following a recent meeting of the Troy Zoning Board of
Appeals. Following public input at the meeting, our request for a
variance to the residential zone maximum height limitation was denied.

Since then we have revised our site plan and moved the planned new
building to an alternative location.  This new proposed site, which is
in the City’s Institutional Zoning District, is in the same parcel as
the existing president’s house. After a careful technical assessment of
the proposed building and the specific features and topography of this
alternate site, it was determined that the footprint of the existing
house would provide the best and most technically appropriate location
for the new residence. This plan will require that the existing house be
demolished.  The re-use of the footprint of the existing house will
allow the re-use of many of the existing site features, infrastructure,
and utilities. The new residence will be in full compliance with the
zoning requirements of the Institutional Zone.

The building will be two stories high, with approximately 9,600 square
feet of livable space, divided approximately equally between living
space for the president’s family and rooms for the president to conduct
meetings and events. The building will be in the Georgian style with a
brick facade to match the architecture of the main historic campus
buildings. Work on the property is expected to begin this spring.

As we proceed with the development of this new resource, it is important
that we recognize the generous investment being made in the university
by our Board of Trustees. This donation is yet another example of the
many gifts that each of the Trustees has made to support Rensselaer and
our students, to build new academic programs and buildings, and to
support student financial aid.

With their farsighted investment, President Jackson and her successors
will be able conduct the social and advancement aspects of the
president’s position in a space that is in keeping with Rensselaer’s
transformation as a top-tier technological research institution.

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