 "Photo: Kevin Hou / Heights Editor")
Michael Ross, City of Boston councilman, pressured a group of students and administrators last night to “appreciate” the circumstances surround the city’s “No More than Four” zoning law – an issue currently dividing city and student leaders.
“I didn’t come here to be convinced to go back on this issue,” Ross said, who authored the zoning law in 2008. “You have to know that we disagree on this issue.”
During his speech to a group of members of the Undergraduate Government of Boston College (UGBC), Ross responded to student statements that said the zoning ordinance is discriminatory toward undergraduate students and that it forces them to pay higher rent than they would with more roommates.
Members of the UGBC Senate invited Ross to BC to speak on the housing issues. During a question and answer period following his presentation, Tyler Schenck, UGBC senator and A&S ’12, raised the issued of discrimination against college students. “This law singles out one group of the populace, and to me that strictly is discrimination,” he said.
Ross, who represents Boston’s district eight, defended his zoning law, stating that he had the interests of local families and the development of Boston’s communities in mind.
“There are families that lost their home,” he said. “And that’s something that didn’t come up until two hours into the meeting. And that’s wrong. These people aren’t in this room. They’re not even in the neighborhood.”
During his introductory presentation, Ross discussed what he saw as an issue facing the City of Boston – the loss of its young post-graduate population.
“Despite that fact that we have a steady flow of [students], our undergraduate population rises by about 2 percent every year, we are losing you,” he said. “The 20 to 34-year-old population in Boston is decreasing at an increasing rate every year. We know the issues. It is housing. It is jobs. It is amenities and it’s quality of life.”
Ross said that unregulated rental markets led to increases in the price of property in Boston, making units unaffordable for some residential homeowners.
“Once a house sells for $900,000 or $1 million, it’s never going to go back to [its original price],” he said. “It will never go back to not being student housing.”
Demand for undergraduate housing, he said, is the engine driving the issue. “This is the only population that is really creating this situation,” he said. “All of this caused me to have to write a law that was nearly tailored to going back to … normalcy – to trying to have a place that will, forevermore, be past the point of no return.”
University dormitory expansion will alleviate this problem, he said. “Boston is the second most expensive city in America to rent or to buy,” he said. “And that’s not good. Much of that is due to the need for more on-campus housing. Right now we’re trying to transition through that.”
He said that if all Boston universities met 75 percent of student housing needs, the housing market would be significantly alleviated.
One topic of agreement between Ross and the attendees was the need for greater collaboration between the colleges in the greater Boston area. Harvey Simmons, president of the UGBC Senate and A&S ’11, said early in the meeting that BC has discussed the issue of housing with other colleges and universities in Boston.
Ross also said that collaboration between the universities to create a unified bus route in the metropolitan area would generate a positive civic service. A similar idea is being explored by members of the UGBC.
Ross also encouraged students to be more involved in their communities. “Communities need people who are participating in the civic realm – going to meetings, getting involved in community organizations and making sure that city hall is fixing their sidewalks and fixing their streets,” he said. “You should all sign up on the census. This is considered your domicile. You should all register to vote in Boston.”
1 comments