Last week the Boston Globe
completed its “Spotlight” series on unsafe apartments rented to college
students in Boston, and the sometimes deadly and dangerous consequences of
same. Like many “Spotlight” reports, it could have been written by Captain
Obvious because anybody who attended college in Boston, or knows anybody that
attended college in Boston, knows that apartments are routinely cobbled out of
basements and attics. Notwithstanding the attempt by the article to spread the
blame around to landlords, Boston Inspectional Services and the colleges, the
real culprit is: money.
The
colleges accept more students than they can house. Students (and often parents)
don’t want to pay more than they have to. Landlords want to make a profit.
Inspectional Services claims it does not have the financial resources to
properly police the landlords and the apartments. I doubt the City of Newton
would allow students to live in unlawful basement and attic units. I was
reminded of 81 Spooner Road LLC v. Zoning Board of Appeals of Brookline, 78 Mass. App. Ct. 233 (2010), aff'd on
other grounds, 461 Mass. 692 (2012) in which a resident chased a neighbor
all the way to the Appeals Court because he feared the neighbor was going to
construct a game room in the attic of a single family dwelling. In the suburbs,
the
neighbors would complain loudly and frequently, and the city would purse
enforcement and recover the maximum penalties allowed by law. The City of
Boston should take a hint from the suburbs and collect as much money as
possible from the landlords as filing fees, inspection fees and penalties; and
use the revenue to hire more inspectors and prosecutors. For reasons
unexplained in the article, Boston appears to collect very little money from
offending landlords. The article stated that one landlord had received tickets
totaling $51,720 for violations but paid only $3,010 and most of the unpaid
tickets were dismissed. In the suburbs, one cannot open a hot dog stand without
obtaining a pile of permits and paying for the related fees, expenses and “peer
review consultant fees.”
But
unless the problem is addressed head on, it will only get worse. The article
hints at the overall economic impact caused by lack of enforcement. As
landlords find ways to squeeze in more and more tenants per building, the
additional rent revenue artificially increases the value of the buildings which
(a) artificially drives up the cost of real estate in the neighborhood forcing
out more and more owner occupied buildings and (b) places pressure on other
competing landlords to stuff more tenants in their buildings. Consequently, the
cycle continues and creates more unlawful units. We know from the experiences
of the real estate booms and busts over the past few decades that artificially increasing
the price of real estate generally pads the wallets of the few at the expense
of many.
Finally,
every college and university that turns a blind eye to the problem should immediately
rewrite their policies and practices. The tragic and preventable death of
Binland Lee should be a wake up call to every college President in Boston to
become proactive in protecting the health and safety of their students.
PAUL F. ALPHEN, ESQUIRE
ALPHEN & SANTOS, P.C
paul@lawbas.com
http://www.lawbas.com
