Relatively speaking, landlord Robert A. Marks claims the city of Boston’s rental housing policies are discriminatory. If he is right, it could devastate efforts by both city officials and private property owners to control the number of people that can occupy an apartment.

Marks is one of several landlords from the Allston-Brighton area launching a legal counterattack to the city’s efforts to crack down on illegal boarding houses. According to state regulations, no more than three unrelated people can occupy a dwelling unit, but the region’s skyrocketing rental rates have forced many people to partner up in numbers well beyond that limit. In Allston-Brighton, for example, several documented cases have shown upwards of a dozen college students sharing one abode.

Marks does not deny that he has rented to more than three unrelated people at his property at 16 Gerald Road in Brighton, but he insists that the situation does not violate the state regulation, Mass General Law 140, because he does not rent the space individually, on a per-room basis.

We believe the words of the law they say exists are accurate, but they don’t apply to tenants of apartments, Marks said last week. The fact is that I am not running a lodging house in any way.

In a lawsuit filed in Superior Court, Marks and several other Allston-Brighton landlords maintain that the lodging house statute does not apply to people who jointly rent an entire apartment, and if it did, that measure would be unconstitutional under the equal protection provision.

Why is it that you can rent to 15 related people but not to more than three unrelated people? Marks asked. If that’s the case, how can they call this a public safety issue? … It just doesn’t make sense.

Marks was one of several landlords who have been swept up by the city’s Lodging House Enforcement Initiative, a coordinated effort between the Inspectional Services Department and the city’s police and fire departments to identify and shut down illegal boarding houses. ISD spokeswoman Julie Fothergill said last week that the program has cited approximately 50 property owners during the past year for violating MGL 140. In about 80 percent of the cases referred by the enforcement team to the city’s Licensing Board, the landlords have been found in violation of the law. In all of those instances, Fothergill said, the ruling has been appealed.

It’s a bottleneck up in housing court, Fothergill said of the appeals, adding that the process has been slowed because MGL 140 traditionally has not been enforced. It was only after a fatal rooming house fire in 1998 that the issue came to the forefront, she said. Despite the holdup, Fothergill dismissed Marks’ notion that the city is not aggressively pressing the issue because it thinks the landlord lawsuit will prove the measure unconstitutional.

We’re still pursuing all of the cases, Fothergill said, although she declined to discuss specifics due to the pending litigation.

Beyond public safety concerns, the overcrowding of apartments has become a consistent issue for neighborhood groups, who charge that the practice affects available parking and also increases trash and noise, especially when groups of college students reside together. In the Gerald Road area, the debate has become a chief focus of the local neighborhood group, the Aberdeen Reservoir Cleveland Circle Association, which charges that the practice is also driving up property values and squeezing families out. The neighborhood is just a few blocks away from Boston College.

For his part, Marks said that any parking problems should be addressed through increased regulation, and noted that many families also own multiple vehicles. He also dismissed the noise issue as a red herring, maintaining that, I’m not so sure that eight students have louder parties than four students.

Marks also put the onus on the colleges themselves for not providing enough on-campus housing. Given the current market dynamics, he said, it is unfair to chide property owners for trying to maximize the income of their investment.

We are landlords operating in the United States of America, and if somebody offers us a higher price, we’ll take it, Marks said.

Ironically, it is not just the public sector that has tried to limit the number of renters in a unit. As reported in last week’s Banker & Tradesman, for example, several condominium boards on Gainsborough Street in Boston have ordered any unit owner renting to more than two unrelated people to terminate that lease by June 1. A spokesman for the condo associations said there had been problems with college students in recent months, prompting the evacuation order. The limit on unrelated renters is contained in the by-laws of the condo associations.

In some respects, Marks agreed that college students can present a problem, and said he might consider settling the lawsuit on his end if the city raised the limit on how many unrelated people could occupy a dwelling. He did, however, reject one offer to settle if he were to evict all but four of his tenants.

Unless I set up a cot at the front door, there’s no way I could enforce that, he said.

In the meantime, Marks and his colleagues are inviting real estate groups to join in their quest. Attorney Stephen A. Greenbaum, representing the plaintiffs, was unavailable for comment, but Marks said he believes the debate could have major implications for the state’s housing stock. As part of its effort, the plaintiffs are trying to get their legal case designated as a class-action lawsuit. In any event, Marks said he is confident his side will prevail, adding that, we believe we are winning the lawsuit.

Fothergill, however, said she believes the ISD and the enforcement team have the law on their side, so much so that officials are already taking additional steps to train police officers to recognize an illegal housing situation. ISD does see the matter as threatening public safety, she said, and has determined that its program is the best way to go.

Anybody can challenge the constitutionality of anything, but until the judge makes a ruling, we feel we have a duty to enforce the boarding house statutes, she said.