[Editor’s note: This letter, which was submitted before Spring Break, discussed “No More Than Four” as a proposal. The city’s zoning board voted unanimously to approve it Mar. 12.]
I wish to respond to a commentary that recently appeared in The News (“City Council proposal hurts students renters,” Feb. 28). Michael Rockland writes not as a student, but as a real estate agent at Boardwalk Properties. His comments characterize the proposal to limit undergraduate renters to four as detrimental to students.
It is not.
Limiting renters to four will protect neighborhoods and students. The proposal will help neighborhoods by allowing other segments of the market to compete as well as improve student housing. Allowing an infinite number of renters to live in a single apartment does little more than prevent family and professional housing from existing and pads the pockets of speculating landlords.
Students should think ahead a year or two and decide whether they wish to remain in Boston like so many graduates before them. Consider that Massachusetts is the only state in America to lose population for two years in a row. Many graduates are being forced to choose to settle in better priced cities like Atlanta, Georgia despite wanting to remain here. Capping student apartments to four will have the positive effect of returning safe and strong neighborhoods like the Fenway, Mission Hill and Brighton to the marketplace.
There is no question that the proposal will hurt some real estate speculators who chose to take the gamble betting on lax enforcement when the existing law clearly stated otherwise. But their poor business decisions should not form public policy.
Rockland should know better than to masquerade student scare tactics for what they really are: concerns of a real estate agency.
The fight to kill the zoning proposal, in my opinion, is not the student’s fight, as tempting as it might seem. Instead, allow me to suggest some initiatives that I believe are worth fighting for and if you would like, I will join you in: