Housing for Jesuit Students?

Allston Brighton TAB
Foster Street housing worries Jewish community
By Richard Cherecwich, Staff Writer
Allston, Mass. - While many Brighton residents oppose Boston College’s plans to house undergraduate students on the Brighton campus, members of a quiet Orthodox Jewish community on Portina Road have concerns with proposed housing for Jesuit students on Foster Street.

BC plans to build housing for 75 students and faculty from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology where it would directly abut the Portina Road community, raising fears the quality of life could change in the future if the Weston school goes under.

“It doesn’t concern me for it to be seminary students. They’re not going to have parties, they’re not going to have beer and they’re going to be great neighbors,” Rabbi Din Rodkin said on the phone Wednesday. “My concern is, after five years, it’s going to be dormitories.”

BC originally unveiled its 10-year master plan during a Task Force meeting on Dec. 4, but many Jewish residents did not attend because the meeting fell on the first night of Hanukkah.
Officials outlined the plan to about 40 members of the Portina Road community during a special make-up meeting at Shaloh House on Chestnut Hill Avenue on Tuesday night. The school has decreased the number of beds in Brighton and the number of seats in a baseball stadium near Lane Park Street, but Rodkin said he was dissatisfied.

“Honestly, I didn’t notice anything new, because I saw exactly the same presentation about a year ago,” he said. “I don’t see BC taking any feedback from the community.”