They already got you a room.
"Walsh vows off-campus student housing crackdown; More inspections, daily $300 fines on landlords" by Jonathan Saltzman and Jenn Abelson | Globe staff May 08, 2014
Mayor Martin J. Walsh said Wednesday that the city will levy $300 daily fines on scofflaw landlords, increase the number of inspections, and demand that colleges in Boston disclose the addresses of undergraduate students living off campus, measures designed to protect the health and safety of tens of thousands of university students.
“My concern is the life of every young college student living off campus in overcrowded apartments,’’ Walsh said.
The mayor’s announcement follows this week’s Globe Spotlight Team investigation that reported that illegally overcrowded apartments riddle the city’s college neighborhoods, where some absentee landlords maximize profits by packing in students who often seek apartments off campus because universities admit more students than they can house.
Meanwhile, Northeastern University said Wednesday that it may sever its relationship with one of Boston’s most notorious landlords, who has received millions from the school over the past decade to house its students in a dozen buildings near the campus. The university’s ties to the landlord were a focus of the Spotlight report.
Related: Walsh's Welcome to City Hall
Walsh, responding to the report’s findings about landlords who repeatedly violate city and state regulations but receive kid-glove treatment from regulators and the courts, pledged to crack down and fine property owners $300 a day for each violation.
The city already has the power to impose such fines, but rarely does so.
Walsh said in a phone interview: “We absolutely have to be tougher.’’
The mayor also plans to hire more inspectors to regularly check the city’s 154,000 rental units for potential code violations. The Globe series uncovered widespread problems in Allston, Brighton, Fenway, and Mission Hill, where students were living with a host of indignities and hazards, from rodent and pest infestations, to doors without working locks, to missing smoke detectors, and bedrooms crammed illegally into basements or firetrap attics.
The city had already earmarked money to pay for five additional inspectors to carry out a new inspection regimen. But Walsh said that is not enough and that he will hire more. But he did not have specifics on how many or when.
The mayor also said he intends to meet soon with representatives of all the colleges in Boston to insist that they turn over addresses of undergraduates living off campus, review university expansion plans, and make schools live up to promises to move students out of the neighborhoods and onto campus....
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"Walsh replaces inspections chief in wide shake-up; Change at top in housing scrutiny" by Andrew Ryan and Thomas Farragher | Globe staff May 13, 2014
Mayor Martin J. Walsh replaced on Monday the head of the city agency that inspects restaurants and rental units, including off-campus student housing, the first step in what the mayor described as a series of management changes at the Inspectional Services Department.
Walsh said the shake-up has nothing to do with a report last week by the Globe Spotlight Team that found the city’s chief code enforcement agency was no match for scofflaw landlords and the flood of complaints from neighborhoods that are home to thousands of students. The Inspectional Services Department regularly missed health and safety problems that create dangerous, sometimes life-threatening conditions.
It doesn't help when he blatantly lies about it.
Commissioner Bryan Glascock, who had been in the post since 2012, will be replaced in the next few weeks by William Christopher, an architect who lives on Walsh’s block in Dorchester. The mayor described Christopher as a rigorous administrator.
Glascock will move to the Boston Redevelopment Authority to become the city’s “zoning czar,” a position Walsh created to take a comprehensive look at Boston’s patchwork of building codes and regulations.
He got a promotion?
And think of this: not to spoil the great Menino legacy, but this situation with the kids was allowed to go one for years and years. This guy Glascock was in charge when the fire went down.
“It’s not a demotion,” Walsh said in an interview. “You don’t demote somebody by moving them to a different department. Bryan has a history of actually doing a lot of process work here in the city, and we felt he was the best guy for the job.”
The announcement of Glascock’s move comes just days after Walsh promised to get tough on scofflaw landlords and called for an increase in inspections in student neighborhoods.
That had nothing to do with it!
Walsh acknowledged Monday that “ISD in some cases is outmatched by landlords,” but the mayor said the culprits were budget cuts, staff reductions, and inadequate technology, not mismanagement by Glascock.
“If I was concerned about his leadership, he would not have the new post in the BRA,” Walsh said. “But I think definitely we need some reforms in inspectional services.”
The agency, which relies largely on paper files, is not able to give firm answers to basic questions, such as how often landlords are cited for housing violations. And when records are filed electronically, the agency does not scour the data to track which landlords have been cited the most.
I'm tired of shit excuses for government corruption and incompetence. I really am, be it Boston or the nation.
After the Globe published a series of photographs last week showing student rental apartments that appear to violate a Boston zoning rule that bars more than four full-time undergraduates from sharing a house or an apartment, Glascock led a group of his inspectors to three of those units in Brighton and Allston.
What are these guys doing other than waiting to be tipped off by the paper so they can go perform public relations work? They are getting paid for that?
When no one answered the door at those apartment houses last Thursday, three inspectors left notifications for tenants about the city’s interest in inspecting the properties.
Ever hear back?
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Glascock, who lives in Roslindale and has worked for the city since 1986, was paid just over $113,000 last year, according to payroll records. Glascock’s new salary at the BRA has not been finalized, but Walsh said he would not face a pay cut.
Why would he? He's not being demoted. if anything, he should get a raise.
Neighborhood activists have complained that the Inspectional Services Department has been unable to police chronic overcrowding of student housing. After Boston University provided the city last year with the addresses of off-campus students, the department said it did not examine the data to determine which student rental units were in violation of the overcrowding measure.
That means they IGNORED the PROBLEM!
During his visit to the student apartments last week, Glascock lamented that it is difficult to police overcrowding because landlords and tenants have an economic interest to make it hard for inspectors to gain access.
During the Spotlight investigation, the city was unable to produce any citations against landlords for cramming too many students into a rental unit. Even after two fires on the same street in Allston, one of which killed a BU senior last spring, neither property owner was cited for overcrowding.
Josh Goldenberg, who escaped from a 2012 fire by jumping from an attic window on Linden Street in Allston and suffered major head trauma and neurological problems, said he welcomed Walsh’s announcement.
“I look forward to a new system of seriously inspecting student housing off campus,’’ Goldenberg said. “It can’t be overlooked. Off-campus student housing has been a serious safety issue, and I’m happy to hear that new regulations and changes are going to be made.’’
Walsh’s administration announced several other promotions and hires Monday, mostly at the BRA....
Yeah, enough staying in the slum. Time to go uptown.
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Related(?):
Walsh's World
Going condo is so much better than college!
Homes are Part of a Healthy Economy
The Boston Globe is No Longer Home
Kids aren't reading it.
Also see:
A tall order for chief inspector
Students at Dorchester school are all college bound
As long as it is not in Boston.
Mass. school chief wants Boston superintendent job
Report urges help for Boston’s young black, Latino men
A time of the signs as Walsh’s name rises
Questions raised about search for Boston fire commissioner
