As a proposal to prevent more than four undergraduate students from renting a single apartment moves toward the final approval stages at City Hall, students living in Allston are beginning to raise questions about the measure.
The City Council approved legislation in December to change the definition of family in the Boston zoning code and make it impossible for more than four undergraduates to rent together. The Boston Redevelopment Authority approved the amendment last week and sent it to the Zoning Commission for the final approval process.
The refinement to the zoning code language was first proposed by City Councilor Mike Ross, a Boston University graduate whose Back Bay district includes part of the Charles River Campus but not the Allston and Brighton neighborhoods that would be most heavily impacted by the measure.
BU Student Union representatives attended the BRA hearing last week to gauge how the measure could affect students.
“It’s definitely discriminating against students, but it’s at least for the better of some of the people living in Allston,” Union representative Andrew Bannish said.
Bannish, a College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, said he understands the motivation behind the bill is to alleviate pressure on the housing markets around universities. Boston colleges have seen increased student populations, and City Hall regularly receives complaints about noise from constituents, said Ross legislative aide Michelle Snyder.
Ross said the bill protects students who are packed into apartments “like sardines” and have been victimized by landlords, in a January interview with The Daily Free Press
Snyder said zoning laws have not been strongly enforced in the past and landlords sometimes pack up to 10 people into one unit, converting porches and closets into rooms, without being held to adequate city regulation. Ross’s regulation change “is saying no more than four undergraduate, full-time students can live with another,” she said.
Landlords renting to students can raise rents to levels students can afford without considering the effect on the entire market, Snyder said. The legislation is not intended to hurt students or prevent them from living off-campus, she said.
“It isn’t targeting students, it’s protecting them against these landlords,” she said. “A lot of these students are first-time renters.”
Other cities with large student populations, like Bloomsburg, Penn., and Bowling Green, Ohio, have student-specific zoning language, Snyder said. Greater Boston Legal Services, Northeastern University, Suffolk University and Allston, Brighton, Mission Hill, Fenway and Beacon Hill residents support the bill, and Ross’s office has heard little protest from college students, she said.
BRA spokeswoman Jessica Shumaker said the law will benefit students economically and will not prevent students who want to live off-campus from doing so.
“It still provides students to have off-campus housing, just not in overcrowded packed apartments,” she said.
Shumaker said the BRA approved the amendment so that the zoning code change would only apply to undergraduates, not “young professionals” rooming together after graduation.
Boston Realty Source leasing consultant Matt Zborezny said the proposed regulations are for the safety of the community.
“You don’t want 10 people living in an apartment for three or four people,” he said.
However, Zborezny said he is concerned about how the rules would affect landlords leasing apartments.
“I think a few landlords are going to get hurt. It’s going to hurt the economy,” he said. “These properties are going to end up back on the market and no one’s going to want them.”
College of Communication junior Oliver Cox said he thinks the law unfairly targets college students who already face problems getting back into BU’s housing system after moving off-campus.
“I understand what they’re trying to do, I understand college students are loud, but come on, we live in Boston,” he said.
BU spokesman Colin Riley said the new regulation would not affect on-campus housing because the second and third phases of the Student Village will add 900 beds to the housing system.
“We have fewer students living off-campus than ever before,” he said. “We’ve been moving in this direction for the past 15 years.”
Bring BU Back founder Katie Geiss, a CAS senior, said she was not aware of the proposed legislation. She said she wonders why BU students have not gotten an email from the administration informing them about the proposal.
“So much of BU’s student population lives off-campus. They would be swamped if they had to move back on,” Geiss said. “You’d think BU would petition against it.”
CAS sophomore Teja Yenamandra attended the BRA hearing along with Bannish on behalf of the Union, and said he did not think many students would be displaced by the new law, but added some students living with more than three people will be forced to find new housing arrangements.
“I definitely think it will displace students and I definitely don’t think it’s fair, but I think at this point it’s hard to argue against because the law was already in existence,” Yenamandra said. “The way to address that is to have more on-campus housing.”
Bannish said he has not decided whether he supports the regulation, and his decision will reflect how much he thinks the rules would help local families or hurts Allston-area students.
“It’s obviously going to make the housing search a lot more difficult for students,” Bannish said. “Obviously, BU’s housing needs are not being met.”
Staff reporter Evelyn Ratigan contributed reporting for to article.