By Steve Babcock

Concerns over Northeastern leased apartments at both the government and community levels came to light this week as a result of the Boston Inspectional Services department’s charge that the university is avoiding inspections on some of the 13 buildings where Northeastern leases units.

“Northeastern is more concerned with maintaining enrollment than providing safe living conditions,” said John Dorsey, the Inspectional Services assistant commissioner. “Some of the properties are unfit for human habitation.”

Property inspections of the apartments on Westland Avenue, along with St. Stephen Street and Hemenway Street, are carried out by Inspectional Services through the obtaining of permits by landlords, a process that Dorsey said the university is averting through its ill-defined agreement with landlords that tows the line between whether the properties are residence halls or city apartments.

Despite Dorsey’s contention that the university leases the space it “knows are not residence halls,” Assistant Director of University Communications Christine Phelan said that since the university does not own more than 50 percent of the units in any building, it is not required to obtain the permits.

“[Northeastern’s housing officials] have done everything within the bounds of the law,” she said.

Apart from the issue of obtaining the permits, Dorsey said there was still the issue of safety with the conditions of some of the apartments, as well as the students’ interaction with the surrounding community in the Fenway area.

“If I were a parent, I would be concerned if my student was housed at Northeastern,” Dorsey told the Boston Globe on Thursday, with regard to the safety of the apartments.

Several students, however, have said that their landlords do adequate jobs with keeping the apartments up to standard.

Dorsey also said that students were exhibiting behavior that made them “substantial public nuisances” in the eyes of the surrounding community.

These reports were fueled by complaints from the Symphony United Neighbors group of students’ presence in the neighborhood as a result of the increasing amount of what they consider inappropriate behavior.

“The community is concerned with the number of students throwing parties and basic disregard for the community,” said Assistant Director of Government Relations and Community Affairs Jeffrey Doggett, who has been in close contact with the neighborhood group.

Doggett said that the university was conducting meetings (one on Tuesday night) with neighborhood residents, to curb the residents’ complaints and assure them that the university had a hand in regulating the students’ behavior.

“The university, along with the Boston Police Department, identifies problem properties. The university pays to have Boston Police detail on Friday and Saturday nights, [if there is a problem reported] then we send someone over,” he said. “We want to make sure that we have a quick response system.”

With resident complaints still a reality, though, the university does have to face the issue of having to house all of its remaining resident student population, a group that has increased in recent years, within the limited space of the community.

President Richard Freeland said that the “realization” of the resident complaints bolsters the university’s need for the new campus housing to be opened next year in West Campus.

“The goal is to provide good housing for our students. The community goal is to reduce the pressure on the neighborhood in terms of students competing with families for housing in the neighborhoods,” Freeland said Friday. “I think the pressure will be less as a result of our building the housing we’re building.”

In terms of providing enough space for students while still being a “good neighbor,” Freeland said that Northeastern does “more than any other university in the area.”

Despite this assertion, the charge by Dorsey and the Inspectional Services department still stands that some of the apartments are below standards.

“Colleges have some responsibility to provide for the welfare of their students,” Dorsey said with regard to the apartments.

City Councilor Michael Ross, who represents the district in which Northeastern and the apartments are located, has long contended, along with Northeastern Student Government Association President Michael Romano, that the student tenants actually get taken advantage of by area landlords because of the questionable ownership of the building.

[The charge] was a cheap shot,” Romano said. “But it did highlight the fact that NU needs to continue to develop and clean some property that is below standards.”

— Staff writer Lauren Rouleau contributed to this report.