Schools may be asked to help on housing cap

Ross renews try to ease crowding

COUNCIL PRESIDENT Michael P. Ross pushed through an ordinance in March making it illegal for more than four students to share an apartment.

Michael P. Ross, president of the Boston City Council, wants to enlist college administrations to help crack down on overcrowded student apartments, proposing a new ordinance today that would require them to inform the city when more than four students live together off campus.

But college officials responded coolly yesterday, expressing concerns about student privacy and the accuracy of any systematic searches for overcrowding.

Ross pushed through an ordinance last March that made it illegal for more than four undergraduate students to share an apartment, responding to neighborhood complaints that such living arrangements - common in areas of Mission Hill, Allston, and Brighton - create a nuisance.

But the law has largely been flouted by students and landlords alike, and the city's Inspectional Services Department has said that federal privacy laws hamper their ability to determine whether the occupants of overcrowded apartments are students.

Ross's proposal would require colleges and universities to collect, twice a year, the addresses of all their students. The schools would then be required to cull the data for the names of multiple students sharing the same address and report violations to the city.

"It's very much in the realm of reasonable oversight and enforcement for institutions to make sure their student are not breaking the law, or at least knowingly breaking the law," Ross said in an interview.

He suggested it would take only five or ten minutes for colleges to run calculations on spreadsheets with data they are already required to collect to find violators.

But college officials suggested yesterday it might not be that simple.

Three years ago, the city passed a law requiring colleges and universities to provide an annual statistical report to the city on the percentage of students who live on- and off-campus and the number of off-campus students who live in each ZIP code.

Officials with two colleges said yesterday that the information they have on student addresses is not always accurate and that the requirement could overlook violators or lead to scrutiny of students who are abiding by the law. If students at a multifamily house fail to include their apartment numbers in the addresses they provide colleges, that could make it appear that they are breaking the law.

The requirement in Ross's proposed ordinance that the college turn over to the city the names of students could violate federal privacy law, said Robert Chambers, assistant to the president for community relations at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

He also raised questions about the accuracy of the addresses.

"I just did a mailing on commencement, and a lot of them came back, because the addresses were wrong," Chambers said. "It's really up to the student to give us their information. We always tell them they need to do this, but the information we put out is only as good as the information we get in."

Jack Dunn, a spokesman for Boston College, estimates that about 90 percent of the addresses in the school's database are correct. In a statement, he said the city should be focused on ensuring the availability of adequate student housing.

"While we are happy to study the council president's proposal, we feel that the solution lies in assisting colleges and universities to build more student housing, as Boston College has proposed, and in the Office of Inspectional Services continuing to crack down on absentee landlords who abuse students and other renters by charging exorbitant rates in substandard dwellings that necessitate overcrowded apartments."

The overcrowding law, intended to prevent landlords from turning single- and two-family houses into high-rent apartments with multiple bedrooms, makes landlords liable for violations.

But it appears landlord practices have not changed significantly in light of the law. A review of apartment listings on Craigslist showed dozens of 5-bedroom and 7-bedroom apartments listed yesterday in Mission Hill targeted at college students.

A spokeswoman for the Inspectional Services Department did not respond to requests for information on the number of tickets issued under the law so far.

While the ordinance Ross has drafted requires that colleges inform the city of any violations, Ross said he was open to allowing flexibility for colleges to handle the problems internally at first.

"I'd like to see nothing more than the problem be handled without hauling landlords into court," Ross said.

John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com.