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City cracking down on overstuffed student apartments in the Fenway

ISD warning sign in the Fenway

Sophie spotted ISD signs on some Alpha Management buildings in the Fenway tonight.

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Comments

someone should be facing a criminal charge for that, if it's a prank

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but why pick that law to do the prank? if the joke is on Alpha then why not just say it is for unsanitary conditions or whatever

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Do they have to force entry into a private dwelling?

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None. But most college kids don't know that and will let them in if they demand it. The average person is more than happy nowadays to "cooperate" with the government even when it's to their own detriment.

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First, I think there are rules on how many people can live in an apartment at once and if so, they are obligated to follow the rules. The rules exist so kids don't die in house fires like they did in Allston a few years ago. It is not their detriment it is for their safety. Please do not give libertarian opinions without giving both sides of the argument.

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They tried to inspect my grandfathers two family home (which he lives in) because it contained a rental unit (which a family member lives in). My grandfather being from the great generation that he is, politely told the city employee to go ____ himself!

Further he's failed to pay their fee and nothing has ever come of it...

Its another BS ordnance..

http://www.cityofboston.gov/isd/housing/rental.asp

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What hero he is /s...

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When is this ordinance going to be ruled unconstitutional? I'm not a lawyer, but it may violate First Amendment rights to free assembly and/or Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection (because it only applies to students).

A crackdown could yield a test case.

Maybe a real lawyer could chime in.

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Not a lawyer, but interested in constitutional law.

I cannot imagine how the free assembly clause would apply here. Assembly refers to a temporary gathering, where the participants express something. Living in an apartment with someone is not an "assembly".

It might be possible to challenge this ordinance under the equal protection clause, but government treats different groups differently all the time (for example, the elderly, disabled, or veterans get benefits that the rest of us don't get). These types of laws are judged on a pretty lenient standard, the rational basis test, which pretty much means that the law would be found constitutional unless the plaintiffs could show that it served no legitimate government interest. But the city could very easily argue that reducing the various problems associated with having huge numbers of college kids living together off campus is a legitimate government interest.

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those fire safety codes that limit the number of people at a bar or concert venue would also have to be removed...

your argument does not apply

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Case in point: you can still have a family of ten living in the same unit where you are forbidden to have 5 undergraduate adults.

It also applies equally to a 2000 square foot house and a 700 square foot two bedroom.

Maybe Mike Ross should move to Indiana - they like his kind of thinking there. This isn't about crowding, but about greed and categorical hate.

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Whose greed exactly? How about the landlords who let this kind of thing go on because they sure can squeeze a lot more money out of a rundown apartment by renting it to eight students than one family with five kids. I'm having a hard time seeing college students as big victims here.

I'm honestly not seeing your quibble with this. Overcrowding is a bad idea and demonstrably unsafe and it makes for very unpleasant living conditions for ordinary working folks living nearby (ask anyone who's done time in Brighton or Allston). And check back on the weekend coming soon when students move out and we're awash in trash to ponder why yes, maybe there should be some different rules for student housing.

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Given that it's April 1st, I find it easier to digest SwrlyGrl's posts if you just assume they're crafted with today in mind.
(gah, it's becoming the "stay off the internet" day)

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Hoping!

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Why is it more unsafe to have 6 undergraduates than a family of 6? It seems like the law shouldn't be about whether the people you live with are related to you or not if its supposed to be about safety. Its real intent seems to be to dilute and spread out the students, who are an easy target for politicians since many don't vote in Boston making them an easy target, like immigrants, to place blame on.

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The commenter who makes a point about "rational basis" and the 14th amendment makes a fair point. But anon makes the counterargument to the rational basis claim. I suppose it depends how the courts see it.

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Honestly I deal with this ordinance a lot for work and many of its biggest proponents and supporters are the people who have to live next to these overcrowded student apartments. When apartments are crammed full of students it causes rents to go up for families in the area and huge quality of life issues. Fenway and Allston Brighton have the lowest home ownership rates in the city and it's getting worse because investors are buying all the available space and stuffing students into it. Students are obviously not the only people who live in over crowded conditions but they are a lot more likely to cause issues in the neighborhoods and be living unsafely if their apartments are overcrowded.

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who live next to these student apartments are the same ones who habitually object when the universities propose building dorms to house their students.

Sorry, but you can't have it both ways.

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The owner/landlord would have to have apply for a "rooming house" license for more than X unrelated people living in a unit alone together.
Students are not a protected class, but wondering how 6 unmarried unrelated people who are cohabitating as couples would fare - if they were married to eachother they'd be able to stay there?
so perhaps discrimination against singletons / or marital status?
anyway.... if the tenants were more respectful and the landlords took better care of their property this would not be an issue.
Parts of Allston and Brighton have been ruined by disrespectful students/greedy landlords who don't show any love to their surroundings.

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Doesn't the Bill of Rights say no searches without warrants?

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It is an inspection.

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I'm wondering about the specificity of "undegraduate" students, does that mean 5 or more graduate students, or for that matter, adults in general, can share a unit?

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  • What if you're working toward an undergraduate degree but taking mostly graduate courses?
  • What if you're working toward a graduate degree but taking mostly undergraduate courses?
  • What if you're in a five-year joint undergraduate-graduate degree program?

A dumb law speaks for itself.

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I have been affected by undergrad rules before, landlord refused to lease a building to me and my friends since one was an undergrad. He had a silent agreement that he wouldn't let undergrads into 90% of his apartments to get approval for new construction on mission hill.

Basically if you go to college and don't plan on graduating your undergrad degree during your lease you can be treated like you are a second class citizen

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I would love a building that bans college students. With very few exceptions they are all overly loud and too entitled to care they are loud.

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What do you do for a living? Perhaps we can attribute poor behavior to your profession, and come up with a blanket ban on, say, all bike couriers, anyone with tattoos, all nurses and doctors and other people who have these night shifts that mean that they wake other tenants when they leave, etc.

Why stop there? Hell, in Indiana you can just make up whatever shit you want and say "its my religion"!

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College students (bros, mostly) are statistically loud and obnoxious. Bike couriers aren't. Your argument is invalid.

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It's easy to throw stones from your single family home. Because you are not currently living in a multi-unit building. And I really don't understand why you are being so hostile. You get a lot of unwarranted hostility here and it seems odd that you would in turn try to throw some around yourself.

College students, by and large, are not responsible or adult enough to be given free reign. They need to live in controlled environments to keep them safe from themselves, from others, and to keep others safe from their excesses. That is not to say you won't find older residents who cause noise or party issues, or young residents that do not. But those are outliers. I quite admit that if any of my neighbors when I was college aged had an issue with myself or the people I lived with they were probably very justified. Because we were not responsible residents.

Nor are landlords responsible enough to be given free reign. The majority of investor owners of real estate have only one bottom line. Money. Do you really want companies like Alpha Management to have no oversight? I would think, owning a home, you would want some assurance that the others around you are not engaging in illegal activities, or deferring maintenance. As those things can affect your own, personal property value not to mention current quality of life.

And in answer to your question above, anyone in any shared living environment, regardless of their schedule or career or age, has a responsibility to be a considerate neighbor. People single out college students because many if not most are loud. If nurses, as a group, had a reputation of being loud they too might be singled out. We're not talking about being irritated that someone is walking down the stairs at 3AM. We are talking about being irritated that someone is blasting dubstep and vomitting in the hall at 3AM.

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Most new construction around Fenway has deed restrictions around housing undergrads

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Mike Ross was the force behind this, if you recall.

I thought Mr. Ross was a fairly benign mediocrity, but then he shoved this absurd ordinance down Boston's throat. When it passed ... welp, I had many feelings.

"Rubbish" is the polite one that comes to mind. I've never done a faster 180 on someone as I did when Councilor Ross managed to get this stupidity passed.

He should be ashamed of himself.

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See - exploitation of grad students, post-docs, med school students, and interns condoned! Pack them in more than five per.

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...you're irrelevant, Markkkkk. As you are here. This is about apartment rentals, son, not about university hiring practices. I know it's pretty much impossible for you, but please try to stick to the topic.

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Do it in April when the school year is almost over and a month and a half before most students take off for the summer anyway.

Better late than never?

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So, do you really have a lot of problems out in Eastie with more than four undergrads living in the same unit? Really?

(How does one get to that far off place in under two hours by the T or a $60 Uber anyways? I need to know ...)

Mike Ross deliberately wrote an ordinance to focus on (that is, *punish!*) landlords and potential lettors in the Back Bay, Fenway/Kenmore, South End, and Roxbury Crossing (Mission Hill).

So, please, stop clutching your pearls so tightly. You'll give yourself a muscle spasm.

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but I can speak for Chris. He may not have college kids, but he may have other people living four or more to a unit.

Eastie, like Chelsea, where i live.. which btw has a similar ordinance.. has many people living in small apartments. Way over crowded. Like 8+ in a 2 bedroom.

The city of Chelsea did a sweep last year and was amazed at some of the living conditions. They not only do it to assist with the 8+ people living in a small apartment issue, but make sure landlords are doing their job. The city found many were absentee landlords were just neglecting property and tenant issues, everything from over crowding to just unsafe living conditions. And since many tenants have immigration issues, many do not come forward with complaints so they just accept it when we have laws that protect tenants.

It's justified. If landlords did their job and not neglect their properties and perform their own inspections on tenants to prevent many of these overcrowding and safety issues, we wouldn't need to do this. But since they don't, it needs to be done every so often.

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Because they wouldn't think to boot an extended family of twelve from the same 1500 square foot unit where they might harass five students.

Even when they have six kids sleeping on a floor around a space heater.

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It's not moronic. I'm sorry swirls, I just disagree. I see overcrowding and unsafe conditions in my town in rental units. If we didn't have inspections, we would have 8-10 people live in a 2 bedroom.

I read the city ISD reports. It happens. It shouldn't happen. And happens more often than you think.

Maybe the thing about students in Boston is different, but in my town, over crowding is a very real thing along with unsafe and unsanitary living conditions where I live.

Edit: here's a link from the Chelsea Record when the city passed the ordinance. They were shocked themselves:

http://www.chelsearecord.com/2014/03/28/council-passes-housing-inspectio...

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This isn't a safety code, but thanks for reading carefully.

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Try to rent an apartment in this town with kids--let alone six kids and see how far you get. Every slumlord in Boston is eager to get students--no hassles about lead paint, mom and dad will pony up the rent. Families...not so much. Not to mention it's just plain easier to cover the rent when you've got seven adults chipping in and not two parents with kids (those freeloading little jerks). Sorry--I'm just not feeling the sympathy here.

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Or is this about hating on students?

If it is about safety ENFORCE THE SAFETY CODES. That means, yes, fifteen people in a two-bedroom apartment is unsafe regardless of their genetic commonalities. That means code violations are unsafe, regardless of the activities of the residents. That means that seven unrealated non-students are as much of a hazard as seven unrelated students.

The student part should not matter in the least. Ever.

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It shouldn't matter to some do as i say clown living in a single family house. It does, however, matter to those living in apartment buildings, who don't like finding pools of vomit I'm the elevators, being awakened by drunken screams at three in the morning, having their car windows smashed up by a bunch of drunk 18 year old idiots, etc.

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I'd like to congratulate you for one of the dumbest responses I've ever had the pleasure of engaging with on uHub.

My comment has nothing to do with where I live, who wrote the (stupid) law, or why. Simply that they've waited to do it until the end of the school year, which seems kind of dumb. I guess you could look at it as a preventative measure for next year, but even that's a stretch.

Where I live has nothing to do with it, though I am sorry that you apparently do have to deal with living around overcrowded student apartments.

For the record, I've lived in Allston and my girlfriend lives in Fenway (not with 5 other people), so I've spent/spend plenty of time in both neighborhoods. Which again has nothing to do with anything, but will apparently give my comment more credibility with you.

And as far as your very banal and predictable "Eastie is so far" comment: it's not. You can get downtown faster from East Boston than you can from Allston or Brookline, both of which you can get to from Eastie, or to Eastie from in 45 mins or less on the T, even WITH the Government Center closure. MAYBE a little more than an hour at rush hour because of Green Line stops. I also pay much less in rent for a much larger place with significantly better amenities, with better parking and less crime than many other residential neighborhoods in the city. Not to mention I have the ocean up the street, 3 grocery stores and a Target within a 5 min drive, and the best views of the city you can get from within city limits.

This may be useful to reference as well.

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the landlord still pays the fine. the student's year goes uninterrupted. why make the student the victim of what the landlord should have enforced?

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This law has never affected me personally (too old >< ) but I think it is honestly pretty fucked up and pretty unamerican

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Who's the snitch?

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...Stitches

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the schools, obviously. they finally gave in to the cities demands for addresses.

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I suggest that you look up the federal privacy rules that were upheld in court when Mr. Indiana Ross tried to grandstand.

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related to overcrowding to anti-gay discrimination laws? Seriously??

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If they were, we would see crackdowns in Eastie and Dorchester and parts of the city where people hotsheet two bedroom apartments.

The anti-student ordinance is categorical hatred based on profession. Pure and simple. If overcrowding is the problem, crack down on over crowding. If code violations are a problem, crack down on code violations.

It is that simple.

Also, please note the comment that you replied to. Indiana Ross tried to force Northeastern and BU to cough up lists, and they told him to go fish as federal law prohibits them from divulging student information.

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Or are you really saying that low-income families with children in East Boston and Dorchester are being given preferential treatment over BU and Northeastern undergrads?? And again...you're equating this with homophobia?

Two other points: being a "student" is not a "profession"--it's almost be definition a non-profession so I can't imagine why you'd think anyone would have an abiding "hatred" of students. Second--it seems very clear that this stemmed from a long history of complaints from neighbors in student-heavy areas re overcrowding, noise, etc. if there were similar complaints from neighbors in East Boston or Dot, then surely we'd see more regulation. As far as "hot-sheeting" goes, we've seen plenty of buildings targeted as problem buildings re prostution or drugs but there doesn't seem to be a rampant overcrowding/quality of life issue in these neighborhoods.

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If there is a hazard in over crowding, it shouldn't matter WHAT people do.

If there are code violations, it shouldn't matter what people do.

If there are unsafe conditions, it shouldn't matter whether people have chromosomes in common or not.

THESE CONDITIONS ARE NOT DEPENDENT ON WHETHER SOMEONE IS A STUDENT.

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Honestly--I give up. You want to compare the problems of a bunch of relatively wealthy undergrads at BU and Northeastern to your son's friend's family in Dorchester (let me guess--low income immigrants from Vietnam or elsewhere?) and equate student housing regs with anti-gay discrimination in Indiana? Be my guest. But I really don't understand why you're being deliberately dense about an issue that you seem to have no direct experience with. It's not JUST about overcrowding--it's about quality of life for neighbors AND for students. Read the article. The number of complaints re housing, noise, parties, trash is WAY higher in student neighborhoods. http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/05/04/overcrowded-off-campus-housi... THAT'S what it's about, ok? When we have the same number of issues in Dorchester--or Medford for that matter--then let's talk.

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If this is an April Fool's joke in very poor taste, you need to stop it. Now.

If it isn't an April Fool's joke in very poor taste, you need your head examined.

Either way, you're being a grade-A jerk.

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FWIW I assumed it was referring to Indiana Jones.

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I think they are. How else does Suffolk County summon students for jury duty whose driver's license & voter registration is elsewhere?

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Read this: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html

Giving up that information is a federal crime, except in well described circumstances.

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The phrase that comes to mind here is "unfunded mandate."

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You all think the joke is that ISD is inspecting for 5+ undergrads...

but the REAL joke is that ISD would finally (after two scathing exposes in the past three years) actually get off their @sses and "investigate" them (not even necessary if ISD would bother reading the articles, or blogs...or hell just Alpha Management's Yelp page) for being the slum lord they are.

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I was going to say, anyone who believes ISD is going to actually show up to anything is gullible enough they're going to have a rough day today.

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In Brighton last week. It was only on one building, not on the adjoining buildings, and I didn't see any others in the neighborhood.

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As previously stated this is an inspection and not an unlawful search of private property. This means that when the inspection is performed they must limit their scope to the code section(s) they believe to have been violated. However, that is not to say that if during their normal inspection they happen to find a meth lab they can't relay that to the appropriate authorities...but before those authorities could enter they would need probable cause and a search warrant.

With respect to the legality of the inspection itself it would be considered legal in the eyes of the court. This is because when a company wishes to operate a commercial dwelling unit they must obtain a permit to do so. In order to obtain such permit they must voluntarily agree to adhere to laws of this nature.

And it only cost me $150,000 for a law degree to learn that.

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This is one reason I love my COME BACK WITH A WARRANT "welcome" mat.

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It won't accomplish anything that plain mat wouldn't, and I'm sure that I can get one of those cheaper.

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may cause some authorities to think "Wonder if anything is going on there - perhaps we will return with a warrant."

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...this overstuffing of apartments anywhere by greedy slumlords? I'm absolutely amazed. You've got students splitting studio apartments, six kids living two-bedrooms, and absentee owners and investors happily paying management companies to collect rent, perform minimal maintenance, and send the checks. All this does is give tax-exempt colleges an excuse to dodge their responsibility to house their students, driving up rents, making neighborhoods like the Fenway unaffordable for working people. It's a huge problem, over and above the safety issues involved, and I'm happy to see someone might be doing something about it.

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If it were, then they would go after that apartment in Dorchester where my son's friend lived prior to moving to Medford. They had fifteen people in a two bedroom.

Oh, wait ... that's different. Most were the same family.

How can they tell, via inspection, that there are five undergrads living anywhere?

In any case, they need to inspect for actual, rational problems that are already on the books. Persecuting a profession is ridiculous.

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What the defenders of this ordinance fail to understand is that it has nothing to do with safety. Why would 4 undergrads and one full-time worker (5 people) be safer than 5 undergrads?

There is a section of the state sanitary code which states how much square footage for living and sleeping space is required for each occupant. If those requirements are complied with, the apartment is not considered "overcrowded" anywhere outside of the City of Boston, no matter who lives there.

If you research the history of this zoning ordinance you will see that it was all about Mike Ross playing to homeowners in his district who were concerned that student housing was driving up rents, real estate prices, tax assessments, etc. The main reason for that is student housing generates more income (and therefore increases the value of the property) because students' parents will pay high rents (which are often still cheaper than the price for a dorm room).

The Globe etc. just push this as a "safety" issue to get more clicks because that's more exciting than a "zoning violation."

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Are you saying that the City of Boston should be mandating maximum family size? Are you saying that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts should be involved with population control through housing legislation?

I have no problem with regulating and baring 5 or more adults (regardless of occupation or school enrollment) from living in an apartment together. It's purely landlord greed. It causes rent inflation and screws people trying to make a living in the long run.

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If this is about overcrowding, it needs to be defined as a number of people per number of legal bedrooms.

As we have tragically seen in Boston, a family with a large number of children in a small apartment is as much of a hazard as a similar number of non-related people. That isn't regulating family size, but regulating the number of people in a space.

My son's friend and his five person family shared a two bedroom apartment in Dorchester with another six person family and four unrelated adults. Are you saying their common genes made that safe?

If Indiana Ross was REALLY concerned about "greedy landlords, etc.", he would move to beef up ISD code inspections and crack down citywide. But that would offend his property owning friends, you see, so he comes up with this "ban the profession" ordinance as if seven people age 18-22 working in bars and construction sites cramming into a small apartment are magically different than students.

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That's right, Mrs. "Indiana Ross." Boycott Boston until these unfair ordinances are repealed. Meanwhile, in places like Boston (and Chelsea, with a shoutout to Cybah) we will concern ourselves with the various issues, both economic and safety, of attempting to cram as many adults as possible into an apartment.

There was once a time when families were large. That you are against this is your thing. I like the Boston supports families. That said, yes, overcrowding needs to be addresses, but this thing of being mortified that Boston is taking on landlords in the student ghettos is a bit much.

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I am for overcrowding statutes and code inspections and safe housing laws being fairly applied. If a large number of people in a small apartment is unsafe, then a large number of people in a small apartment is ... UNSAFE. Period.

You obviously choose to forget what happens when one of these large families has six kids crowded around a space heater in a small room, right? Like, they all die horribly? The last such mass casualty event wasn't that long ago. Smaller tragedies of a similar nature in overcrowded conditions happen more frequently.

I guess that's okay because its a family dying together and your deity of choice loves dead babies? Because there's more where that came from? Because they are poor?

Hence my problems with this approach to targetting the "type" of tenant, rather than the conditions that landlords are allowed to perpetuate. Ross' nonsense about students is not about safety in the least - it is about grandstanding politics and not offending his friends who own code-deficient properties.

Children in large families deserve to be safe, too.

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Why this obsession with a guy is in no longer in government?

Second, overcrowding has always been an issue in poorer communities. Do I like it? No. Do I think that it might have something to do with the rental market we live in? Kind of. Do I think that when rents get out of whack in student areas it could have an effect on poor people? Definitely. Ergo, let's make sure that these single families are not competing with 6 or 7 upper middle class or higher families' purchasing power when it comes to housing.

So sure, point out to ISD where these poor people live so they can be forced out of housing. Knock yourself out. My deity did say something about housing the poor, but whatever.

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Example:

Patrick and Davey left state government after their terms were up and are now pulling down private money shilling for the 2024 Olympics.

Reaction - OMG, the humanity. How DARE these people do this. That's totally against ethics laws and the like.

Now Mike Ross leaves his City Council job after being re-elected , thus forcing an expensive "special" election, to become Northeastern's liaison with the City.

Reacton - (the sound of) Crickets - or, if you prefer, peepers.

Can you say "double standard?"

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I didn't know (or remember) Ross went to Northeastern, you didn't know (or remember) that he wasn't reelected. Technically he did not run for reelection, the slightly longer version is that he ran for mayor.

Still, he ain't the guy gunning for inspections, and you better believe that most of us who actually live in Boston and are not students are cool with this.

I'm tempted to ask you and Swirls who you voted for in the last city council race.

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I've modified my original post. Blame my error on the near-standard practice of Massachusetts politicians to win an election, and then decide shortly thereafter to quit so they can either go to the private sector or run for higher office, neither of which happened in the case of Patrick.

We really need a law that mandates that elected officials must fully serve out their term of office - excepting very narrow but legitimate circumstances such as serious illness or death. And "I'm tired of the job" or "I want a better job" are NOT legitimate reasons to allow a person to ignore the contract they agreed to when the voters elected them to office.

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Totally back the students -- weird that so many people are backing greedy landlords squeezing as many students as possible into overpriced apartments. Students have rights and are not cattle!

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Is the stupid in the comments today intentional or not? I can't tell.

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are forcing the students to do this... how?

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You know, like charging $1,500 for a studio apartment, knowing full well that students will have to double or triple up to afford it.

And before you go all "Capitalism Rules!" on me, yes, they have every right to charge whatever the market will bear, if profit is their only goal. Now more than ever, I wouldn't count on the average, run-of-the-mill capitalist to have any social conscience at all, at least until you get to the Gates/Buffett/Bloomberg level. But isn't that's why we have government? To work for the common good, not the good of the few?

Anyway, you're right, students aren't literally being forced to pay through the nose to live in a cramped hovel. And us working folk aren't literally forced to deal with the resulting rent inflation. We could all move to Wyoming, right? Maybe that solution would make you happy. I think it'd be tragically sad, and the end of the great cities, if the middle class is forced out once and for all.

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Boston is full of wealthy students, both American and international, for whom a $1500 studio isn't a big deal.

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So... your logic is crack down on the landlords (and students) to punish the tax-exempt colleges who are dodging their responsibility? Seems a little inefficient.

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BU and other universities proposed dorms to house all students by 2000.

The neighborhoods fought those. Now those same people whine about students.

Too bad. Bed. Made. Lie.

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Swirly, I hate to break into your MTV, but the '80s were thirty years ago. "The neighborhoods" still exist as physical entities, but just how many people who "fought" the dorms do you think are living in these neighborhoods now?

Clearly this whole topic has inflamed your sense of comme il faut, but please, a little more perspective.

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This is not a joke, the signs have been around the East Fenway area, where I am a resident, for several weeks. Undergraduate students living off campus in these apartments are a major scourge in this area and so are the absentee landlords who rent to them.

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This sign is on the door of my building which is run by Hajjar Management and I definitely was surprised to see it. Hajjar has been a pretty good management company based on my experience.

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There are also many instances where the property or building management is not corrupt or overcrowding the units but rather realtors who are responsible for finding tenants for non owner occupied units. For example a "Condo" building may have a general management company but each unit is owned by individuals who, if not owner occupying the unit, turn to a realty company to fill the unit because they do not feel the need to be personally involved in the management of their own property. Absentee owners, often in other states or countries, are a horrible thing.

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in advance. Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of the inspection, to uncover illegal or unsafe practices?

And I am suddenly reminded of the WKRP episode when the consultants preparing an evaluation report came to inspect the station after announcing their intentions beforehand.

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Perhaps the 1956 ordnance is out of cold war fears that high concentrations of undergraduates could spur spontaneous combustion, partying, drinking, or even dancing? That more than 5 together could approach fraternity and sorority levels without the oversight?

As for comparing undergrads with a large extended family with children, I bet the kitchen, sink, stove, fridge, floors, bathroom etc. would probably be kept cleaner by the family than the undergrads.

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If I believed this were genuine, and not an April Fool's prank, I would note that this is punishing the wrong people.

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a) Request Minutes of the most recent and previous Public Meeting of the Zoning Commission, email
zc at cityofboston.gov

City of Boston
Boards & Commissions
Select a Board or Commission from the drop down list provided.
http://www.cityofboston.gov/boardsandcommissions/

Policy Area:
Board:
Department: Zoning Commission
Contact: Jeff Hampton
Email
ZC at cityofboston.gov

Authority: City
Term: 3 years
Stipend: $0.00
Seats: 11
serves as the legislative body for adoption of all Boston’s zoning regulations and amendments. View the Enabling Legislation
http://archives.lib.state.ma.us/actsResolves/1993/1993acts0461.pdf

Member...........Appointed..........Expires..........Status
Nelson Arroyo 12/3/2001..........5/1/2004........Active.....Flag
Jane Brayton...12/3/2001.........4/23/2005......Active.....Flag
James Clark.....................................................Active
Robert Fondren...............................................Active
Jill Hatton.........................................................Active
Jay Hurley........5/21/2001.........5/1/2004........Active.....Flag
David Marr.......5/5/2008...........5/1/2011........Active.....Flag
John McDonnell 10/5/2010......11/1/2012.......Active.....Flag
Michael Miles.....10/5/2010......10/1/2012.......Active.....Flag
Olivia Waishek...10/5/2010.......10/1/2012......Active.....Flag
Jared Wollaston 5/22/2012......11/1/2014......member

Apply for the Zoning Commission Board City of Boston
http://www.cityofboston.gov/boardsandcommissions/application/apply.aspx?...

__________ ____________________
b) Request Minutes/Notes of the Zoning Board of Appeals, email
zba at boston.gov
City of Boston
Boards & Commissions
Select a Board or Commission from the drop down list provided.
http://www.cityofboston.gov/boardsandcommissions/

Policy Area:
Board:
Department:Zoning Board of Appeals
Contact: Derric Small derric.small at boston.gov
Email
zba at cityofboston.gov

Authority: City
Term: 3
Stipend: $0.00
Seats: 7
View the Enabling Legislation
http://archives.lib.state.ma.us/actsResolves/1993/1993acts0461.pdf

Member...................Appointed.....Expires.....Status
Christine Araujo.......7/23/2012.....7/1/2015...Active
Bruce Bickerstaff.....7/23/2012.....7/1/2015...Active
Peter Chin...............7/23/2012......7/1/2015...Active
Mark Erlich..............9/6/2013........9/1/2016...Active
Mark Fortune...........4/23/2012.....6/1/2015...Active
Tyrone Kindell Jr. ..10/24/2014....10/1/2016..Active
Kerry Walsh Logue 11/10/2014....11/1/2016..Active
Anthony Pisani .........7/23/2012.....7/1/2015...Active

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Also just a point of clarification, students are almost never "punished" the universities are responsible for housing them until everything is resolved

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