Dorms vs. Apartments: The Herald Gets it Right!

Hub can’t afford to be Lease Police
By Boston Herald editorial staff Friday, January 4, 2008

City Councilor Michael Ross’ plan to regulate how many students can share an apartment in Boston is a classic case of treating the symptom instead of the underlying disease.
Ross wants to cap the number of students who can rent a single apartment in the Hub, part of an effort to crack down on unruly behavior as well as unscrupulous landlords who exploit students. But his time might be better spent reasoning with neighbors who scream bloody murder when a local college or university proposes plans for a new residence hall.

Yes, we understand the frustration of many of Ross’ constituents. But frankly, it doesn’t much matter whether there are two or 20 students living somewhere - real problems arise when 200 arrive for the big bash. Regulating the number of names on a lease will do nothing to address that.

And while it’s hardly our first instinct to leap to the defense of students’ civil rights (they have the ACLU for that) we have to wonder whether Ross would be so heavy-handed with non-students who pack apartments to share expenses. Room and board is costly (as is city living) and many students and non-students alike save by bunching up.

Make no mistake - we sympathize with the hard-working city residents who grow weary of beer cans piling up on their doorsteps and having to report loud parties at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday.
But we grow equally weary of residents like those in Brighton who are lining up against Boston College and its plans to build a new residence hall on the self-contained grounds of the former Boston archdiocese - or the folks on Beacon Hill who forced Suffolk University to abandon plans for a new high-rise dorm near its main campus.

There will always be town-gown tensions, particularly in a city as densely populated as Boston. But the solution is to encourage more schools to bring their students back onto campus where they can keep an eye on them - not in mobilizing the Lease Police.