Surprising no one, Boston landlords scoff at student housing law
A couple months ago, Boston city councilors unanimously approved a new regulation that limited to four the number of students allowed to rent any apartment in Boston. (So, even if an apartment has five, six, or twelve bedrooms, only four students can live there.)
The new law was met with joy from neighbors who no doubt expected that students would leave the area and that suddenly their nights would be filled with nothing but the sounds of crickets chirping (and the not-so-distant sound of cars and trucks on the Mass Turnpike).
Well, according to Peter Schworm in Saturday’s Boston Globe, someone forgot to tell local landlords. And students.
Landlords and college students are widely flouting a new Boston ordinance prohibiting more than four undergraduates from sharing an apartment, amid deep skepticism that city officials can practically enforce the measure.
Residents and college officials are counting on the measure to curb rowdiness in neighborhoods with high concentrations of college students. But as legions of students return to campuses, property owners, students, and real estate agents say, the law is having little success in deterring thousands of students from living together in large numbers in apartment houses neighbors liken to dormitories.
I admire the goal; well, whichever goal it is that is used as an excuse for this: lower home prices, quieter neighborhoods, etc.
How anyone can enforce it, I don’t know.
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