The news that a group of students was evicted from a Somerville house seems to be a sign of Somerville occasionally enforcing its city ordinance, which forbids more than four unrelated people to reside in a single dwelling. This is unfair to Tufts students and Somerville residents alike. If Somerville is to have an occupancy ordinance, it should enforce it at all times. If the city is going to ignore it in most cases, the ordinance should be wiped from the books, as it is unfair for occupants to suddenly find themselves subject to a law rarely used.
The law has its intentions in the right place. Housing ordinances are made to keep the occupants safe, and student apartments have infamously had problems following these rules. Even though the unrelated occupancy ordinance seems anachronistic, it does address an understandable concern: fire safety must be nearly impossible to enforce when 17 students live in a typically-sized Somerville house, as they did at 167 College Ave.
Somerville is not gaining any respect for its rules, however, by sporadically enforcing this housing ordinance. If it only imposes this ordinance to houses that also have noise violations, it will appear that Somerville is targeting problem houses. Landlords and students may feel that they can break occupancy laws, so long as they keep quiet and not attract attention.
This current approach to ordinance enforcement is neither increasing safety in student residences nor boosting the City of Somerville's standing in the eyes of students. The city must find a way to publicize its housing ordinances before students move into an overcrowded house.
Currently, both students and landlords are ignorant of city and state housing ordinances. Most students have only heard rumors of the infamous "brothel law," which was repealed in 1984. It is too bad that off-campus students continue to not read or follow city housing ordinances before they move in. Residential Life and Learning's Off-Campus Housing Resource Center Web site has made great strides in the past year and provides students with much more relevant information than it had in the past. But more could be done, especially with the full list of relevant housing ordinances.
Additionally, landlords must be held accountable if they break laws when they lease apartments. The landlord of 167 College Ave. must have been aware that he was breaking the Somerville housing ordinance when he allowed 17 people to live in a single abode. By allowing so many students to live together, he was putting their safety at risk in order to gain more rent. The City of Somerville should pursue this matter. If landlords get away with taking advantage of ignorant students, it simply encourages a future pushing of boundaries in the future in the name of profit.
It is clear, however, that Somerville's occupancy ordinances are no longer realistic to maintain. Simply restricting the number of unrelated occupants at four does not account for the variety of apartment layouts and the realities of off-campus living. The law should be tied to the size of the space. This will ensure the safety of the residents while not appearing archaic and inflexible.
Whether or not the residents of 167 College Ave. knew about the ordinance before does not matter; now, they must move in the middle of the semester. They were lucky that their landlord had extra properties for them to move into, but the next residents Somerville inspects might not be so lucky.
Since it seems embarrassingly apparent that a fire that killed a student has not shocked students into making sure their houses meet all the applicable housing standards, maybe the threat of being evicted will.
