Editorial, Opinion

STAFF EDIT: Full house

Just days after Boston University’s Student Village II garnered extensive media attention for its unprecedented amenities in a university dormitory, BU residents have yet to consider more housing news. City Council President Mike Ross’s ‘No More than Four’ legislation went into full effect Sept. 1, the day that officially ended the grace period provided to off-campus students who signed apartment leases before the ordinance was established. Now, nearly two weeks into the law’s full passage, students and citizens wonder about its legitimacy.

The law, which has been contested by many off-campus students, ignored by some landlords and supported by both City Council and area families, lacks a salient constitutional backbone, rendering it difficult to enforce without an invasion of student privacy and FERPA laws. Because of this red tape, the ordinance is being carried out unceremoniously, calling for a new measure that would allow Boston’s Inspectional Services Department to legally request residential information regarding students from university databases. This added provision seems less like a necessary step taken to ensure ‘a good quality of life in the city of Boston’ as Ross’s spokeswoman Amy Derjue asserts, and more like a way to punish students who opt out of campus-sponsored housing and to subordinate adult students who have every right to live however and with whomever they choose.

Ironically, the praised StuVi2 building, along with many other dormitories within university campuses citywide, offers suite-style living accommodations, some of which house up to eight students each. While resident assistants moderate these buildings, the principle of it all still seems hypocritical. StuVi2 accommodations are the most expensive on campus, and students who choose to move off campus usually do so to save money, and to escape the hassles of living under RA supervision. But in moving into off-campus apartments, these students ‘- apparently considered rogues by administration and city councilors alike ‘- are now going to be supervised anyway even though they pay their rent and utilities independently, cook their own meals and clean their own bathrooms.

It is this sort of babying and strict moderation that motivates students to rebel in the first place. While BU dormitories are BU property and are in no way out of line to regulate the activities of the students who live there, off-campus apartments, the landlords who manage them and the students who chose to rent them are no business to BU. That being said, BU has no place to research and release information regarding student apartment configurations to city departments who wish to fruitlessly complicate the only affordable residential option left to students living in urban areas like Boston.

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