Boston housing initiative to lower off-campus student housing

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh announced Thursday a new housing initiative to decrease off-campus student housing and provide more dormitory space for the growing student-body in Boston.

The initiative, “Housing a Changing City: Boston 2030,” will create housing for Boston’s incoming residents and will add 16,000 dormitory beds to college campuses throughout Boston by the year 2030, according to a Thursday press release.

“I am committed to making sure that the prosperity Boston is enjoying reaches every neighborhood and every Boston resident,” Walsh said in the release. “Any person who wants to contribute to making Boston better should be able to live and succeed here — regardless of their income level, race or physical ability.”

Boston’s residential population is projected to reach over 700,000 by 2030, the press release stated. To accommodate the influx of Boston residents, the City has proposed a 50 percent increase in its production of affordable housing.

“Boston is growing. We are going to see 91,000 new people here in the year 2030,” said Lisa Pollack, spokeswoman for the Department of Neighborhood Development. “We are growing in all demographic areas. As a city, we have two choices. We could both respond to the growth as it happens or we can prepare for the growth and be ready for it as it happens.”

Pollack said the initiative, expected to generate more than $20 billion, would allow colleges to work with developers to build new dormitories, and the DND is working to find ways for “colleges to work together to share dorms.”

Boston’s influx of students is putting pressure on the rental market, Pollack said. For every three new dorms that are created, one unit of workforce housing will be made available.

“We love students,” Pollack said. “This is not meant to be anti-student. This is meant to make sure that students have a good and safe place that they want to live, and it is also meant to help stabilize our community.”

Boston University houses nearly 12,000 students on campus with an undergraduate student population of about 16,000, said Boston University Director of Residence Life Dean David Zamojski.

“Students benefit from living on-campus,” he said in an email. “We place an emphasis on safety, community and learning in the living centers. Students who live on-campus have resources available to them related to housing that students who live off-campus don’t.”

Several BU students said they are skeptical about whether or not the initiative will be effective.

Anthony Pasquariello, a freshman in the College of Engineering, said Walsh’s initiative might be ineffective because students are still going to do what they want.

“The people that want to live off-campus will still find a way to live off-campus,” he said. “I don’t know how that will affect the on-campus ratio, but I feel like if people really want to live off-campus, they will.”

Some students who currently live off campus said the initiative would not change their thoughts about returning to campus.

Tomas Jordan, a junior in ENG who lives in Allston, said despite the fact that there would be more room on campus, he still would not move back.

“My experience living off campus has been 100 percent positive,” he said. “What made me decide to live off campus were the ridiculously high prices for tiny rooms, lack of privacy in presence of a large number of students and limitations due to BU housing policies.”

Robert Heghmann, a senior in the College of Communication, lives off campus in Allston, and said he sees the appeal of adding more dormitory beds to university administration, but he has no interest in moving back to campus.

“Instead of simply adding more beds, [administrators at BU] should reevaluate what many responsible students want out of their livings arrangements,” he said. “I decided to live off campus because it is cheaper than the few viable on-campus housing options for seniors and because it gives me a sense of independence that on-campus lacks.”