By Eric Eisenberg
ALLSTON – In January, with their landlord pressuring them to sign a lease for their house on Glenville Street, Phil Moss and his four roommates met in the living room of their house to discuss their housing plans for next year. Unable to decide, the landlord signed someone else to the lease, and facing the housemates searching for a place to live.
"We all wanted to stay in the beginning," said Moss, 21, who has lived off campus for two years. "Our landlord signed with someone else before all of us had agreed to do it."
On Mar 11, the Boston Zoning Commission voted unanimously to pass a law banning more than four college-aged students from living together.
The law has sparked opposition from students who live in Allston. A Facebook group titled “Boston Students in protest of no more than 4 law” now has about 1,000 members.
“They shouldn’t discriminate,” said Eli Wisnievitz, 20, a student at Boston University who has been living off campus for the past year in the house on Glenville. “Just because people are college students, they can’t assume that they are bad, or they are going to misbehave or throw a lot of parties. They should only be able to do that on actual evidence.”
The law was created to reduce the number of parties and noise in neighborhoods with large student populations, the housemates say the number of housemates does not correlate with the frequency of parties.
“Not having more than four people live in a house is not going to stop partying,” said Jeff Neidorf, 20, a student at Boston University who has been living off campus for the past year. “It’s not going to stop people from coming. It is just unfairly taking away our rights.”
Another concern of off-campus students is the price of housing. Students generally split the rent proportionally with housemates, as that number decreases, students fear that living off-campus will become a financial burden as landlords raise rents to cover losses.
Some have suggested students move back on campus and into dormitories or apartment-style residences, but the Boston University students in the house on Glenville Street moved off-because the small dorm rooms felt like jail cells. Moss didn’t like the university’s guest policy, which prohibits guests after 2 a.m. and require all guests to present identification.
“I think it is good that they protect the students, but it is too intervening in student’s lives,” Moss said.
His housemates have since found off-campus housing elsewhere around campus, only two out of the five are still living together.
“Living in a five person house means that I am with four of my friends, which means I never have to call somebody if I want to do something that’s fun,” said Doug Geron, 20, who has lived off-campus for two years. “The reason we wanted to live together in the first place was because we all had similar interests.”
© Eric Eisenberg, All Rights Reserved