Local landlords and an area student are right to challenge a recent change to the Boston zoning code that targets full-time undergraduates by limiting apartment capacities only for this very specific demographic. The amendment is fundamentally flawed because it irrationally judges apartment tenants by occupation, and is destined to cause more problems through an invasive enforcement policy than it alone will ever solve.
Though undergraduate-resident cap supporters bill the zoning change as a quick solution to citywide problems of family displacement and rising rents, the amendment goes about using the zoning code in a convoluted way, by targeting students as a group unique from all other city residents. Rather than bolster noise control or law enforcement in student neighborhoods, City Hall went after student problems with an ill-fitted answer: definitional amendments to the municipal zoning code. The amendment’s supporters insist the ordinance benefits both Boston families struggling with high rent as well as students abused by delinquent landlords charging exorbitant rents, but the truth of this proposal is that it will, if anything, increase rent by reducing the number of available beds near campuses, and force students out of their adequately sized homes.
Worst of all, the amendment places the responsibility for enforcement on the landlord, else he violate laws and jeopardize his property holdings. In order for landlords to comply with the changed standard, they will have to keep tabs on their student tenants’ college status and year if they want to house more than four tenants per unit. If a student declines to provide his educational information, the landlord would need to go to the student’s school for verification. Under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, students can prevent any personal or academic information from being publicly divulged by their colleges. If a landlord, then, is to comply with the new ordinance under al circumstances, he would need to break FERPA laws.
The city and Zoning Commission should step back and ask a critically important question, one perhaps lost in the hasty process to pass this measure from council chamber to the mayor’s desk in little more than three weeks: Who benefits from this change? While students can get rowdy in certain neighborhoods, laws already on the books can enforce civil behavior and sanitary living conditions. The overcrowding problem cited by amendment supporters is simply a mischaracterization. Neighborhoods saturated with student residents are naturally near to campuses, and other urban areas eagerly seek the economic stability and relative safety student populations bring.
Demonizing students and threatening their privacy and legal protection is no way to go about improving city neighborhoods. Until legislators can a thoughtful solution to housing challenges in the city, City Hall would be right to do away with the misguided student-resident cap.
