By Mary Whitfill, News Correspondent

In mid December, Boston renewed its Rental Inspection Ordinance intended to enhance health and safety inspection standards of apartment complexes across the city. The ordinance, which sets new building registration and inspection standards, has the ability to raise standards of living for thousands of student renters in Boston.

The new ordinance requires landlords to report to the city about the upholding of certain laws and frees renters from the responsibility of requesting inspections for their buildings. The previous laws stated that landlords were only required to have city inspections performed when the rental property changed hands, or when requested by tenants, but the new regulation subjects all property to more frequent inspection.

“Whenever an apartment was turned over it needed to be inspected, but we relied on the landlords to notify us and the amount of calls we were getting didn’t match up to the numbers that were actually turning over,” said Jacob Glickel, a spokesperson for the city’s Office of Environment and Energy Services.

“Most of the people who called were the people who were following the rules anyway and their apartments were already up to code,” he said.

All Boston apartments will be inspected in the next five years, and then will be inspected annually for each year after. Landlords can request exemption from inspections for up to a three-year period if their apartments are consistently in compliance with housing regulations, a press release from the Boston Redevelopment Authority said.

“Hopefully, this new ordinance will help improve the conditions of area apartments,” said Ashley Caron, who works as a Northeastern Community Ambassador to help off-campus students feel connected to the university community.

“I think this is a necessary change, and it is a great step for the city to take to ensure that all city housing is up to code. It is really important for all students to know their rights as paying tenants. Hopefully some of the issues students may deal with when communicating with their landlord about maintenance problems will be addressed with this new ordinance.”

In addition to being held to certain basic health and safety codes, landlords will also be expected to abide by all Boston student housing laws that previously went virtually unchecked, the statement said.

“[The ordinance] holds landlords accountable for student zoning limits,” SGA Vice President for Student Affairs Nicole Daly said. “You are not allowed, in the city of Boston, to have more than four full time undergraduate students, who are unrelated, living in the same apartment. Because landlords now have to report that information, they are held accountable for it.”

The new ordinance will also create a public “blacklist” of apartment buildings that are not up to code. If landlords do not keep their buildings in compliance, they will be recorded in a public registry of apartments that are not safe for tenants.

“While this won’t necessarily force landlords to fix problems in the apartments, they can be fined more, and students will be able to check this list on the City of Boston website prior to searching for apartments,” Caron said. “While this might not be running for this apartment hunting season, it is a great step, and students can make themselves aware if the apartments they are looking at are owned by neglectful landlords prior to signing a lease.”

Additionally, the laws create a supplementary “chronic offender registry” that will track repeat offenders of the ordinance and impose fines for non-compliance. The goal of this registry is to stop building owners from abusing city resources by not correcting their violations in the most timely and efficient manner.

“The current system does not really have the capacity to check on every building, we just don’t have the people or the resources,” Glickel said. “The new ordinance imposes a fee structure on landlords upon building registry that will pay for the full staffing that we need.”

According to Caron, the community ambassador, the Fenway and Mission Hill neighborhoods are the most popular areas for Northeastern student renters to live, with a recent spike in the Columbus Avenue and Roxbury areas.

“The ordinance will have a significant impact on student housing, because we will be able to properly investigate the areas of the city where rental costs tend to be a little less,” Glickel said. “This will increase the standard of living for students without a direct increase in rental costs.”