Boston’s Inspectional Services Department responsible for enforcing building codes and maintaining the quality of life in Boston’s residential neighborhoods is in the process of creating an ordinance to further curtail the problems of rental properties in Allston-Brighton, especially those occupied by university students, the department coordinator announced last night.
John Dorsey, assistant commissioner for policy and communication at ISD, outlined the plan for residents at a community meeting hosted by the District 14 police department at the Brighton Marine Health Center.
Dorsey said the plans for a new ordinance came after Mayor Thomas Menino announced his goals for ‘long-term change’ last month regarding the city’s rental properties. Menino said among his main goals were to help the ISD learn the location of student residences in order to conduct a ‘pre-rental’ inspection to ensure the building is habitable. His other priorities were to use university student codes to discipline students more effectively, expand the array of quality-of-life offenses and shift more students onto campuses.
‘The city needs to be more effective, the schools need to be more accountable and the landlords need to be more accountable,’ Dorsey said.
Due to the large student population renting apartments in Boston, landlords often overcharge tenants and fail to keep up the building and surrounding property, Dorsey said. Consequently, neighbors are continually forced to deal with trash problems, rodent infestations, front-yard parking, high occupancy and general noise at all hours.
‘These landlords make obscene amounts of money and they’re ruining the quality of life in the neighborhoods,’ Dorsey said.
While Dorsey said he has been working with nearby universities to create effective punishment for students linked to school policy, the new plan would directly target landlords who continually violate Boston zoning regulations and would charge hefty fines, as opposed to the current system of simply issuing a violation notice.
‘When you hit folks in the pocketbook, that’s when they really start to pay attention,’ Dorsey said.
Dorsey also said the ISD is in the process of equipping police officers with checklists to bring to houses in order ‘to help weed out where problems are.’
‘An officer [responding to a call] could go into a house with a checklist of issues and see if there are problems that Inspection Services should tend to,’ Dorsey explained. ‘Then we can find out where problems are, find out where to direct our resources and prosecute as necessary.’
If the ordinance is passed, ISD inspectors who witness violations in the neighborhood could slap a first-time offender with a $150 fine, while each subsequent fine would be $300. Dorsey called the new policy ‘sticker shock’
he predicted once landlords are getting sticker fines every day, they will be financially unable to keep up and will have to make the appropriate changes.
The proposed ordinance has yet to go before the city council, Dorsey said, so it is unclear when it could go into effect.
While residents seemed pleased with the attempts of the ISD to hold landlords more accountable, many still complained about the daily problems from students. One resident cited an article about student noise from the Allston-
Brighton Tab, in which two Boston University students were quoted as saying they didn’t feel the noise was a problem and thought long-time residents should expect noisy neighborhoods.
‘These kids do pay a lot for these apartments and they do have the right to entertain,’ said District 14 Officer Stephen Law, who recognized students’ rights to ‘entertain,’ unless it infringes on other residents’ rights to enjoy their property.
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