The students are rolling back into the Hub, packing apartments and pizza shops across the city, but the Boston City Council is not exactly waiting to greet them with open arms. 

Rather, City Council President Michael Ross is revving up his now two-year-long drive to crack down on the at-times rowdy student rental market and those who make a killing on it.

The council chief is gearing up to push through new rules requiring universities across the city to more closely monitor off-campus housing.

And he’s also talked in recent weeks of a new proposal that would slap a $300 fine on any real estate broker who rents an apartment to more than four students.

Still, these are just the latest sweeping – and most likely ineffective – proposals by the council aimed at cracking down on rowdy student renters.

Not A Simple Task

The push comes nearly two years after Ross successfully drove through new zoning regulations that, in theory anyway, restrict landlords from renting apartments to more than four undergraduates.

The idea was to crack down on student party houses, while also taking aim at landlords who turn homes into mini-dorms, driving up rents for neighborhood residents.

But the new law has hardly been a stunning success and, with a couple of exceptions, has been extremely hard to enforce.

The latest proposals appear likely to meet the same fate, taking a shotgun approach to tackling student rowdies when a more targeted effort is needed.

And the economic rationale also appears to be increasingly questionable, with the downturn succeeding in freeing up apartments and driving down rents better than any government edict could do.

“Colleges are Boston’s bread and butter,” said Lemore Monello Schloming, president of the Small Property Owners Association. “To put this obstacle in the way of landlords who own big houses, who own six bedrooms or more, doesn’t seem right to me.”

On paper, Ross appeared to have won a significant victory last year when he won passage of new zoning rules prohibiting more than four students from sharing a single apartment.

But the new rules have proven to be a paper tiger in a city with hundreds of thousands of students, many of whom find it cheaper and more convenient to live off campus.

Just figuring out who is a full-time undergraduate, as opposed to a graduate student – who of course don’t party and are not included in the rules – can be a challenging task for anyone, especially small-time landlords.

Since we don’t live in a police state, no one is required to divulge whether they are a student when they are looking to rent an apartment. And with the new rules in the air, there’s now a big disincentive to do so as well.

Three Whole Cases

Clearly, the city’s Inspectional Services Department has found it difficult to enforce.

Well more than a year after the new rules were passed, the ISD has brought three cases against landlords under the new rules.

One got resolved when the students moved out, though how much of a victory that represents if they just move down the street is another matter. The other two are set to go to court. There is no penalty for violating the rules, though a judge could assess a fine.

Overall, though, it has been difficult to nail down who is a full-time undergrad and who is not, notes Bill Good, ISD commissioner.

“We are relying on the information they give us to determine whether or not they are students or full-time students,” he said.

Undeterred, the council chief now appears to be determined to double down on this so-far losing strategy.

Having held hearings this spring, Ross is hoping to now pass a new set of rules that would require universities to monitor lists of students living in off-campus housing.

If college administrators come across an address with five or more students, they would then be required to send a letter out notifying the undergrads they are violating city housing rules and invite them in for a chat. That, anyway, is the latest version of the proposal, which is still being hammered out.

Sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare, just what colleges across the city need as they struggle with staff cuts and shrinking endowments.

And, even if it passes, students, under current federal privacy rules, may be able to simply opt out and not provide their address, Good said.

Are Brokers Next?

Ross has also begun exploring a proposal to go after real estate brokers who make their living in the student market.

The idea behind that proposal would be to hit brokers with a $300 fine if they knowingly rent out an apartment to five or more students.

The aim, Ross recently argued, is to go after a small group of real estate agents who he believes target the student market and routinely flout the rules.

After initially planning to hold a hearing on the proposal this fall, Ross has put this initiative on the back burner.

Word of the $300 fine prompted a backlash from industry groups, with real estate brokers arguing they too would be put in the impossible situation of trying to sort out who is a student and who is not.

Yet all of this simply expands an effort that is likely fatally flawed at its core.

The days of rising rents and a packed rental market went out the door when the boom went bust.

The economic downturn has changed the dynamics of the real estate market across the city, flooding neighborhoods with empty rentals and foreclosed homes.

The number of available rentals in Boston listed on Massachusetts Listing Service has roughly doubled in the last year, to 535, according to a recent report. Back Bay’s stock of empty apartments has nearly tripled to 149.

It may also be reducing the number of student renters as well, with Good, the ISD chief, reporting the quietest Labor Day move-in he has seen in years.

Moreover, zoning rules are not the way to target party houses. That’s a job better left to working groups of neighborhood residents, police and industry officials.

Instead of targeting brokers and landlords, why not enlist their help?

It’s an idea that Gregory Vasil, chief executive of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, appears ready to embrace and has even broached to Ross.

“It’s everyone working together,” Vasil said. “A lot of our members are actually in different neighborhoods of the city and would love to help. This kind of thing does not get solved by passing a law. It needs everyone working together.”