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Living in a house with 12 other people may not be the norm, but at Boston College, the practice has become commonplace.
Many of the homes in the areas surrounding BC's campus are constructed with the goal of housing as many students as possible.
A Boston zoning code, however, disallows more than four unrelated persons living together in a single family dwelling. The zoning code has a strict definition of family; only direct relatives within the second degree of kinship count, and those fitting into these restraints are allowed to live together.
Because of a court case settled in 2003, however, a precedent for laxity regarding housing restriction in the Boston area has been set, and thus, illegal living situations like those of many living off-campus at BC have gone unpunished.
In 2000, Boston Inspectional Services Department (ISD) and the Boston Licensing Board teamed up to crack down against illegal lodging houses. They found three Vietnamese families living in apartments who defied the city's zoning code and issued a violation to the landlord, who sought to evict the tenants. The families filed a lawsuit and eventually won their case, citing the need for affordable housing as their defense.
Although the case dealt primarily with the definition of a lodging house, or dwellings used to provide lodging for gain or hire, it weakened the city's power to effectively inspect illegal housing situations.
"Zoning that was intended to protect these neighborhoods from turning into actual institutions … was thrown out the window," said City Councilor Michael Ross in a recent public meeting on the issue.
"Boston has been trying to redefine the meaning of family ever since this landmark case."
Recently, Ross proposed in the definition of "family." The new terms allow any number of people to live together.
That is, except for college students.
For those attending a post-secondary institution, the number of unrelated people living in the same household must remain below five.
That means any BC student living in a house with five or more other students is in violation of the zoning code.
The change targets university students specifically; this direct hit comes because of the mass University expansion into Boston's housing markets.
The effect is not wholly seen in the Brighton area that surrounds BC, mainly because most of the houses are owned by the people living in them.
But in areas near Mission Hill and Fenway, where houses are usually only rented by their tenants, the effect has taken a large toll on the community.
Landlords buy out houses, gut the insides to make room for as many bedrooms as they can, and then lease the homes exclusively to college students.
In a public hearing, testimony was given concerning a house dubbed "the Animal House," where a toilet was thrown from the top floor window into a community garden.
Similarly, parents raising children in the area have been forced to move to less favorable parts of Boston such as Jamaica Plain and Roxbury in order to pay rent.
Bill Linehan, city councilor and chairman of the Economic Development and Planning Committee, said that with this change in the zoning code, "ISD will have an amendment that can be used to control too many students being housed for profit in the housing system."
How changes in the zoning code will affect the BC community, specifically juniors who are living off campus, has yet to be seen. If the code is enforced, however, it is probable that many houses once available to BC students will either be sold to Boston families, or failing that, divided into smaller apartments and leased to groups of students small enough to stay within the constraints of the zoning code.
Considering the questionable marketability of homes designed with large groups of college students in mind, however, the latter is more likely.
With BC's Master Plan promising to build more residence halls on campus, however, a large portion of the junior class will have beds on campus within the next 10 years.
But what happens until then?
If the proposed change in the zoning code is cleared by the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), then the classes of 2011 and 2012 are most likely to be affected.
Even if the amendment passes before the start of the fall semester, those students who have signed leases prior to Sept. 1 will face no issue for the next school year.
If the proposed changes do pass, however, BC students may soon face a very different off-campus scene.
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