Michael Ross comes up with new weapon in war on student-crammed apartments

What IS it with Ross (and to a lesser extent these days, Menino) anyway? I know he's just vote-chasing with the locals, but it strikes me as unreasonable to expect the colleges to build enough dorm space in the Boston area to handle upperclassmen, especially in this economy. If they did build that much dorm space, it would practically have to be at the cost of residential space available now.

Maybe he should look up what happened when Menino pushed a local college too hard. Emerson was ready to split for LAWRENCE before Menino backed down and actually worked with them instead of just blustering.

For Mr. Ross' edification, since he seems to think a commercial background check is like pulling a CIA file:

A background check does not necessarily check education. I run them for employers all the time, and the two key pieces are generally credit and criminal record.

They CAN run educational background, but the information to do so has to be provided by the person you're running the check on, and it's costly. There's no reason for realtors to ask for that and they certainly can't legally compel a prospective renter to hand that over for an apartment check. I'm fairly sure that a legal challenge to that requirement would be accepted by a judge as an unnecessary invasion of privacy. This is also time-consuming and expensive.

Nor can they really deduce who's a student based on the information they do get. A young person with five or six figures worth of student loans is pretty typical in this day and age, so that doesn't tell them anything. Ditto a young person with a limited credit history. And what are they supposed to find based on the criminal check?

Perhaps Mr. Ross could bother to acquaint himself with how these systems work, before writing legislation.

When I bought my first condo, a one-bedroom on Beacon Hill in the late ‘90s, I paid $73,000 for it. I was several years out of college, and it was the perfect starter home for me. But today, a similar property can cost almost $400,000. What recent college graduate can afford that kind of mortgage?

There are many reasons why housing has become more expensive in Boston, which far exceeds the scope of this comment. But one thing is certain: If we don't make provisions to ensure that the talented students who attend our city's world-class colleges and universities can afford to start their lives here when they graduate, we will lose as a city. Without a supply of affordable starter homes, we’re going to lose our young people—-the lifeblood of our city—-to places like Phoenix, AZ or Charleston, SC.

When I meet with area CEOs and business leaders, they complain that the major issue facing their Boston-area workforce is the high cost of housing. The law that limits four students to each unit does so much more than prevent the proliferation of "animal houses" in our neighborhoods. It allows for that property to serve as a future home to a college graduate, a young professional, or a family. Without that law, certain units will always be student-only units, and would essentially block out other possible uses.

This policy alone cannot restore balance and allow us to compete with other cities for new housing opportunities. Institutions need to continue dormitory construction while not increasing enrollments, and city policies that promote affordable and workforce housing need to continue. Obviously, integral to all of this is the private market, which must continue to build new housing to add our city's housing supply. But as one of the many policy options available to us, this law will help with the delicate balance that college towns like Boston deal with on a daily basis.

Mike Ross is a joke, and uses his "power" to manipulate the system any way he can. He's been busted for trying to use his city councilorship to get out of parking tickets, he uses it to push cases further in court then they should go, and seems like he is pushing the issue again with this nonsense.

He rallies against the "college kids", but doesn't seem to care when the "residents" are mugging, robbing, stabbing, etc. random people walking down the street in the neighborhood.

a real stand up guy Ross is.