STAFF EDIT: Second-class residents

When he ran for City Council in 1999, Mike Ross promised students he would balance local residents' interests with the needs of Boston's college population. At age 27, Ross was himself a graduate student at Boston University as he ran for the seat representing District 8, which covers Back Bay, Fenway and much of BU's campus. He enjoyed strong support from student volunteers and the endorsement of the BU College Democrats. After beating his well-connected opponent, Ross repeated his support for students at Student Union meetings and in a letter to The Daily Free Press criticizing former Chancellor John Silber. That was then.

Now, more than eight years later, Ross has traded promises of fairness for the pandering polemics of his colleagues, demonizing college students in a cheap effort to appease some of his constituents. In September 2004, Ross co-sponsored an ordinance requiring colleges provide personal information on all students who live off-campus as a way for police to keep tabs on students. His latest proposal calls for landlords to effectively restrict the number of tenants in rented housing to no more than four, explicitly naming undergraduates in a clear attack on the thousands of college students who live off campus. The amendment has already sailed through City Council and the Boston Redevelopment Authority with little debate. When the Zoning Commission considers the amendment, it must squarely reject the proposal, unless the city wants a housing crunch on his hands.

The worst aspect of this proposal is that none of its backers seems to have seriously thought it through. The rules would prevent landlords from renting an apartment to five or more unrelated tenants even if the unit holds more than four bedrooms. Ross has said he proposed the ordinance to reduce rents for working families by making more rooms available to them in neighborhoods like Mission Hill, but he has not explained where students will live if pushed out of high-capacity apartments. BU and Northeastern University already have far too few dormitories to house all their students, and most students will not commute very far to get to their classes. With fewer bedrooms available in the city, the occupancy ordinance would likely cause the opposite of its intended effect by pushing demand up -- and with it rent -- throughout Boston. Far from helping them, this idea would hurt local families as much as students.

At its core, the regulations is also blatantly unfair to students. The rules target all renters in Boston, but families would get an exemption from the cap. It is insulting to suggest -- as the ordinance's proponents have -- that the ordinance would somehow benefit students by preventing real estate agents from cramming them into cramped housing. Though many students are renting their first apartments, even the most naive undergraduate knows better. Students themselves choose to sleep in living rooms and converted closets, because these rooms are often all they can afford. Many BU dorms provide much tighter quarters at a far higher rate. Even when construction finishes on the entire Student Village complex, BU will lack the dorm space to house all of its 16,000 undergraduates.

No group can better defend students against a threat to their interests than the students themselves. The Student Union showed it can work well with local authorities when it met with Brookline police and town officials last semester to mediate between students and local residents complaining of loud parties. The City Affairs Committee represented the students' side of the issue by sitting in on town hall meetings and even riding along with police on night patrols. The Union now faces its greatest test yet in speaking for the voiceless -- and largely voteless -- students who call Boston home for most of the year.

If well-intentioned Union intervention fails to sway City Hall, however, BU's administration must step in to defend its interests. As a large presence in Boston, the university can at least make the city government listen. An aide to Ross reports that Northeastern and Suffolk University have endorsed the proposal, but BU has so far refrained from weighing in on the matter. We hope the administration will use its local clout to oppose the changes. A shortage of rooms off campus would add to students' already heavy financial burdens and force undergraduates into guaranteed on-campus housing that the university cannot provide on its own.

Students pose easy targets when local politicians want to serve other constituents. Few students vote in Boston, and reckless partying only raises their profile. Still, councilors like Ross should mind the needs of all residents, no matter how marginalized. After all, today's apartment-dwelling student could be the next Boston policy maker.