By Jeanine Budd

It’s the fall semester, and it’s illegal for more than four students to share an apartment.

The new law, called “No More Than Four” has drawn attention and caused controversy within the community, but questions about how it will be enforced have risen as well.

Greg Vasil of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, said that the law isn’t workable. Massachusetts’ state privacy laws prohibit colleges from revealing to inspectors whether or not apartment residents are students., according to local media reports. There are currently an estimated 13,000 students who live off-campus in Boston, out of an overall population of 599,000, according to the 2007 census.

“With the state privacy laws, it’s almost impossible to find out if a person is a student or not,” Vasil said. “This is impossible to enforce.”

While many students who signed leases before the measure was adopted expressed concern about what would happen to them this fall, local media interviews with Bill Good, commissioner of Boston’s Inspectional Services Department, revealed that those particular students will not be affected by this law until the end of their current leases. When their leases are up, however, they may be forced to comply.

There has been no confirmed cases of students actually being forced to find housing elsewhere or of being punished for violating the measure, according to local media reports.

Yet city Councilor Michael Ross, the mastermind behind the law, insists that landlords should learn to be cooperative.

“The landlords who continue to rent to more than four students, do so at their own peril. I mean, God forbid there’s a fire or someone gets injured,” he said. “Landlords are opening themselves up to losing their licenses. Breaking this law is not done without risk and it’s certainly not a good way of doing business.”

Ross also said that the law is designed to help students, contrary to the common perception that it’s designed to constrain them.

“Hopefully this will create a safer environment,” Ross said. “Right now, the landlords are adding more students and aren’t reducing their prices. In fact, they’re increasing their prices. The people benefiting from that situation are the landlords, who take in a lot more money, because there are so many students looking for housing, that they can easily take advantage of the situation.”

Junior biology major Jenn Walsh said she thinks the measure is a disadvantage to students.

“It’s just going to make it harder to find housing, because the price for an apartment is just going to rise,” she said.

Sid Sharma, a sophomore finance and accounting major, said that he too didn’t see how this law could benefit students.

“A four-bedroom apartment could fit eight people easily, and it makes it cheaper for us,” he said.

Attorney Stephen Greenbaum is on the side of the students. Contending that the law infringes on privacy rights and creates an illegal form of rental control, Greenbaum is involved in a lawsuit challenging the measure. He hopes to eventually invalidate the ruling, because it targets undergraduate students specifically, making it more strict than similar laws in other college towns.

“Personally, I think it sends a message to students that they aren’t welcome in the city of Boston, or that they’re welcome as long as they’re kept locked up in their dorms, not out with the general public,” Greenbaum said. “What happened was on March 12, the City of Boston took legal use of property of an apartment or house holding 10-12 students, and on March 13, they were illegal. It’s a form of taking and it’s unfair.”

Ross said that he feels these laws are bringing positive outcomes to the cities in which they’ve been applied.

“We have many students who call in with complaints about rodents and safety issues. It’s from overcrowding, a lack of maintenance and things like that,” he said. “Every city has one of these laws, and it’s being done everywhere for a good reason.”