# The West Campus affordability ledger

West Campus got taller. Its affordable housing bargain has an expiration date.

An 84-record ledger connects city contracts, student application routes, rent rules and the dates when restrictions may end. It also exposes the limits of what those records can establish.

**Coverage:** This is an auditable public-record index, not a covenant-verified census of every physical bed. Counts retain their source denomination; unresolved apartment/bedroom elections are not guessed. No current vacancies or tenant eligibility were independently verified.

## A public list already exists. The missing layer is a verified obligation ledger.

The starting premise needed correction. Austin already provides the Affordable Housing Online Search Tool (AHOST), and Rate My Rent already lists 57 West Campus buildings with SMART housing counts and income tiers, including projects in the pipeline. Its page explicitly warns that counts mix rooms and older whole apartments. This investigation is not the first public building list.

Existing reporting explains the density bargain, high rents, student confusion and the push for reform. The city's student-housing case study goes further: it describes difficulty finding the restricted housing and records a small four-property website/leasing audit. Three advertised SMART housing, none published both the reserved count and openings, and the study reported no fall-2024 spaces at those four when checked in November 2023. That is evidence of a specific access problem, not a representative vacancy estimate. The city also cites academic work on West Campus cooperatives; full text was not retrieved here, and those works were not used as evidence for current property restrictions.

The useful next step is to connect records that answer different questions: the city's contract inventory for obligations; the student-facing directory for discoverability; operator pages for application routes; annual rules for eligibility and price; and executed covenants for the legal denominator and duration. The first four can be joined now. The fifth remains the critical missing layer.

This edition contains 83 distinct UNO-tagged inventory contracts and one separately tagged trust-fund beneficiary, Super Co-op. It retains 20 expired entries, four released entries and two fee-only hotels as history, not as current housing opportunities. The applicant view starts with 46 completed housing records; another 12 are certified or under construction. A construction label does not rule out future-year preleasing. No record is described as a confirmed vacancy.

## The bargain exchanges durable development rights for temporary housing obligations.

UNO is best understood as an exchange with several separate terms. A developer receives permission to build more valuable floor space. In return, a recorded agreement specifies a quantity of affordable housing, an income ceiling, a rent formula and a duration, sometimes alongside a fee payment. Each term matters. A percentage without its denominator is not a useful description of the public benefit.

The denominator changed. Older agreements generally counted whole apartments; later rules allowed counting bedrooms. Two reserved three-bedroom apartments and two reserved bedrooms are both “two” in a poorly labeled inventory, but they need not house the same number of students. Shared bedrooms create another distinction between rooms and physical beds. The current inventory's post-2014 tag does not reveal which election a particular property made.

The duration also changed, from the older 15-year regime to a general 40-year requirement for new post-2014 participation. Legacy properties could elect different terms without simply restarting a new 40-year clock. The 2026 guidance measures the required period in years of compliance. A date in an inventory is therefore a reported endpoint, not a substitute for the recorded agreement, amendments or release document.

The resulting question is more precise than whether Austin received enough “affordable units”: how many eligible resident-months of housing, at what actual saving, were delivered for the incremental development value? A student subtotal answers the narrower campus question without treating lawful nonstudent occupancy as a failure. Those are quantities the program should make possible to audit.

## The 572-versus-401 discrepancy has a strong explanation—and a remaining hole.

The city's July-2023 count reported 572 affordable units and 911 beds. Later city material reported 401 units and 972 bedrooms. These should not be combined, averaged or treated as four interchangeable estimates of the same stock.

The later program-analysis tables make the unit arithmetic transparent. They show 256 active pre-2014 units and 171 expired pre-2014 units, for 427 total older units. They also show 145 active post-2014 units. Thus 427 + 145 = 572, while 256 + 145 = 401. The later count removes exactly the 171 older units then classified as expired; some could have been active at the earlier observation date. This is a strong arithmetic bridge, not proof that the original count was erroneous.

That does not completely reconcile the historical releases. The older case study forecast 173 units expiring by the end of 2023, rather than 171. The later report's own bedroom table totals 940 while its headline says 972—a 32-bedroom discrepancy. The change from 911 to 972 therefore cannot safely be called 61 newly delivered bedrooms. Revisions, different observation dates and classification changes must be reconciled against the historical source rows.

The study's 109% growth claim deserves the same discipline. Its 480-before/1,003-after calculation is arithmetically correct, but those figures total 1,483, the same as 572 apartments plus 911 beds. The report does not demonstrate a common housing-capacity measure across the 2014 definition change. Its headline cannot establish a doubling of places for students. That is a limit on the evidence, not proof that physical capacity failed to grow.

## Fourteen completed properties have city-reported end dates through 2030.

The inventory identifies 12 surviving completed properties explicitly classified as pre-2014 whole-unit housing. Every one has a reported expiration by the end of 2030. Together they contain 190 restricted apartments: 45 at 50% MFI and 145 at 80% MFI. Two additional legacy opt-in properties have 23 restricted bedrooms, all at 60% MFI, with reported end dates in the same period. These are separate quantities; they are not 213 beds.

The whole-apartment schedule is 34 in 2027, 35 in 2028, 60 in 2029 and 61 in 2030. Axis accounts for the 34 in 2027. GrandMarc, Regents at 26th and 24 Longview follow in 2028; 21 Pearl, San Pedro Flats, Callaway and Regents at 24th in 2029; Twenty Two 15, Villas on 26th, Tradition on Rio and Crest at Pearl in 2030. The separately counted bedrooms are two at Ellora in 2027 and 21 at Texan 26th in 2030.

These are scheduled losses of restrictions according to one city inventory. They are not verified covenant-release dates, forecasts of eviction, or predictions that rents immediately rise. Extensions, other funding agreements and voluntary continued affordability could change the outcome. Several dates conflict with AHOST, which makes covenant verification urgent rather than optional.

The policy implication is nonetheless concrete: a city can keep adding new restricted bedrooms while losing older restricted apartments and still lack a comparable measure of affordable student capacity. Counting starts without counting expirations obscures the trade.

## The student-facing directory misses 17 of the 46 completed housing records in this scope.

I matched the expanded inventory to AHOST's complete public property endpoint, using normalized addresses and documented name/alternate-address matches. Of the 46 completed, positive-count housing records, 29 matched and 17 did not: a 37.0% property-record coverage gap in this snapshot. This is not a bed-count estimate. A matching error or a different representation of a property could change the result; the join keys and unmatched rows are retained for review.

The unmatched set includes Rambler, Sinclair, Rise, Icon, Callaway, Nine at Rio, Yugo Austin Rio, Yugo Austin Nueces, Villas on 24th, Villas on Nueces, Villas at San Gabriel, AVIA, 24 Longview, Ellora, Avon, Texas Alpha House and Noble 2500. Several have operator SMART pages. Texas Alpha House is a fraternity property with a chapter contact, not a verified general-public application channel. Discoverability and eligibility are distinct.

Matched records disagree too. AHOST shows 42 restricted entries for the Corner against 14 in the inventory, and 114 for Legacy on Rio against 110. Eight matched completed records have conflicting end dates; across the full historical ledger, eleven do. GrandMarc is listed as expiring in 2029 by AHOST and 2028 by the inventory; the Corner's dates differ by roughly 25 years. Neither source has been silently promoted to a verified legal answer.

One attractive allegation failed a further check. The raw AHOST endpoint retains availability flags on some expired properties, but its frontend removes records with past expiration dates. Those backend flags do not establish that the public map displays expired housing. The valid concerns are missing records, conflicting fields and whether the recorded dates are accurate enough for that filter.

## The same income ceiling can produce different rent caps.

Under the June 2026 schedule, a single occupant in a post-2014 restricted bedroom at 60% of median family income has a $1,260 monthly cap. A confirmed legacy bedroom opt-in at the same 60% threshold can have a $1,562 cap. The $302 difference is about 24%. The applicant's income label alone does not determine the price.

There is a second, more consequential distinction. For post-2014 housing elected by whole unit, the $941 cap at 50% MFI and $1,260 cap at 60% MFI apply to the entire apartment. They are not automatically a per-person allowance. For bedroom elections those amounts apply to a single-occupancy restricted bedroom; shared-bedroom caps are $518 and $693 per person. Older whole-unit schedules vary with apartment size and income tier.

This ledger therefore links the full 2026 schedule and labels each unresolved election. It does not manufacture a property-specific price by assuming every new building counts bedrooms. A separately funded cooperative may also have additional covenants; the UNO table alone may not govern its full charge.

These figures are ceilings, not quotes or guarantees of savings. A cap can exceed a market promotion for a comparable room. An individually low-income student can also find a rent based on the upper edge of an income band difficult to afford. The relevant comparison is the actual charge for the intended lease year, including required fees, against a genuinely comparable unrestricted option.

## A 60% bedroom restriction can permit higher income and rent than an 80% whole-unit restriction.

Consider a hypothetical three-bedroom apartment with three residents, one per bedroom. Changing both the legal household/charging denominator and the cohort rent formula can reverse what the income percentages seem to imply. This example uses the 2026 rules for initial admission through standard income verification (Option 2).

| Rule | Pre-2014 whole apartment at 80% MFI | Post-2014 bedrooms, each at 60% MFI |
|---|---:|---:|
| Households assessed | One three-person household | Three one-person bedroom households |
| Annual gross-income ceiling | $96,150 combined | $56,460 each; $169,380 combined across the three households |
| Monthly rent ceiling | $2,243 for the whole apartment | $1,260 per bedroom; $3,780 combined |
| Rent per person, if the apartment cost is divided equally | $2,243 ÷ 3 ≈ $748 | $1,260 |

Three residents earning $50,000 each would fail the older whole-apartment income test: their combined $150,000 exceeds $96,150. They would each pass the newer bedroom income threshold, because $50,000 is below $56,460. Passing that threshold does not establish that a particular application will be approved.

The guide defines the household by the occupants of the restricted unit or bedroom and requires the gross income of its adult members to be counted (pp. 4–5). Its requirement that all occupants qualify does not turn a restricted whole apartment into three independent one-person households. The rent tables and charging examples preserve the same unit-versus-bedroom distinction (pp. 8–10). [2026 compliance guide](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026) · [2026 rent schedule](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026).

This is a hypothetical comparison of two legal configurations, with all three newer bedrooms assumed to be restricted at 60% MFI. It makes no claim about any named property or how commonly restricted bedrooms are grouped in one apartment. It does not model the financial-aid eligibility route or continuing-resident renewal rules.

## Published SMART prices create an auditable fee question.

The Mark's floorplan page shows a SMART base installment of $1,260 and a total of $1,307.45. Its linked calculator itemizes $8.95 for a credit program, $13.50 for a damage waiver, $15 for Fetch and $10 for valet trash. All four are marked non-optional in the public calculator data, and they total the $47.45 difference. The calculator covers August 17, 2027 through July 31, 2028.

The 2026 city guide includes mandatory services and amenities in the maximum rent, while allowing specified utilities outside it. The first three charges do not obviously fit those utility exceptions; valet trash may fit solid waste. Internet is not on the 2026 exception list.

Further checking weakened an allegation of mandatory overcharging. The same operator's move-in page calls the credit program optional and describes an opt-out; it also lets residents provide their own liability insurance instead of paying for the damage waiver. These disclosures conflict with the calculator's non-optional labels, although the pages concern different leasing contexts. They must be included in any fair account.

The remaining question is how the actual SMART lease treats the charges, especially the package-service fee, and which cap applies to the intended lease year. A SMART-specific fee schedule and an anonymized executed lease are needed. The public pages establish inconsistent information, not a proven violation or a verified $47.45 overcharge.

## A restriction count does not tell us who occupied the housing.

An approved need-based financial-aid award or documented qualifying household income can establish initial eligibility under the city guidelines. Merely filing FAFSA is not the same as receiving an approved award. Household size and who must qualify depend on whether the restriction covers an entire unit or a bedroom. Regular financial support from family can count in the income calculation; a student's wage income alone is not necessarily the whole test.

Annual recertification creates another important distinction. A tenant who qualified at entry can remain under the program's continuing-eligibility rules after income exceeds the entry threshold, up to 120% MFI. Above-entry-threshold renewal rent can rise to a maximum of 28% of gross monthly household income, capped at comparable market rent. A snapshot showing a resident above 50% or 60% MFI would not, by itself, establish abuse. Evaluation must distinguish lawful retention from ineligible initial admissions.

The public inventory gives 20 of the 46 completed housing records a latest result of “Compliant”; the other 26 have no published result in that field. Seven lack a usable monitoring year. A blank is not a failed audit. A published compliant result is also not a current, independently verified count of eligible occupants.

The city describes desk and on-site monitoring, review notices, findings and corrective plans. Those procedures establish an enforcement framework. The public fields available here do not reveal actual restricted-unit occupancy, annual applicant conversion, rejection reasons, waitlist length or the resolution of specific monitoring findings. Without those records, both “the beds all go to qualifying students” and “wealthy students take them all” outrun the evidence.

## The benefit extends beyond the buildings tagged UNO.

An on-site inventory alone misses part of the bargain. The city's study reported $5,553,737 in UNO trust-fund collections as of September 1, 2023 and $2,852,829 unspent at that date. It identified three cooperative beneficiaries: 50 restricted entries at Super Co-op, 80 preserved at 21st Street Co-op and eight at Ruth Schulze. Those counts require their own resident/bed definitions; they should not be added indiscriminately to the on-site stock.

Super Co-op's city record is not tagged UNO, although the study documents an $837,500 UNO trust-fund award. A tag-only query would omit it. It is included here as a separately labeled supplemental record. Conversely, the inventory's funding fields for 21st Street and Ruth Schulze show zeros despite the study's documented awards. Filtering only a funding field would not produce a dependable beneficiary census either.

These observations complicate the simple story that fees buy nothing. Fees did support cooperative housing. They also identify the next accounting task: reconcile every receipt, award, disbursement, unspent balance and resulting restriction through the current year. The 2023 balance must not be presented as today's balance.

## The right valuation compares incremental development value with delivered savings.

Extra height is not worth its gross sales or rent revenue. Its value to a developer depends on how much additional rentable area it permits, the construction system required at that height, financing and carrying costs, operating costs, absorption and the alternative feasible project under the base zoning. Compare the change in residual land value or project value between those feasible alternatives. Report gross uplift before affordability burdens and fees, then net private uplift after them. Resident savings divided by net private uplift is a public-to-private benefit ratio, not the fraction of gross zoning value captured.

The household benefit should be measured as eligible occupied bed-months multiplied by the actual all-in rent discount against matched unrestricted housing, then discounted over time. Report students as a subtotal; the income-based eligibility route is not a universal UT-enrollment requirement. The comparison should account for lease length, private versus shared bedrooms, apartment size, utilities, required fees and concessions. A restricted apartment's physical capacity cannot be guessed from the count “one unit.” Fees spent on off-site housing enter through the benefits they produce; counting the same dollar again as both cash and housing would overstate delivery.

An illustration shows why duration matters without purporting to estimate UNO. Suppose a restricted bed saves its resident $300 every month in real terms, is occupied by a qualifying resident all year, and savings are discounted at a 5% real annual rate. Using annual payments, 15 years produces about $37,367 in present-value savings; 40 years produces about $61,773. Extending the term raises discounted savings by 65%, not by the 167% increase in years. At 80% qualifying occupancy, both values fall by 20%. These are assumptions, not observed program outcomes.

Three measures would make the bargain assessable: comparable affordable student capacity by cohort; actual eligible occupied bed-months; and present-value resident savings per dollar of incremental development value. A separate access measure should report how many current properties expose a working, clearly identified application route. None can be replaced by a sum of mixed “units and beds.”

## A peer comparison points to specific changes Austin could test.

Davis provides a useful design contrast, rather than a ready-made outcome ranking. For on-site rental affordable units, its inclusionary code requires recorded affordability in perpetuity and annual reporting on unit identifiers, rents, vacancies and income. Monitoring includes inspection of 10% of those affordable units, through city inspections or accepted third-party reports for that fiscal year. Those are concrete alternatives to expiring obligations and sparse public compliance fields. The comparison does not establish that Davis produces more housing, lower rents or better compliance.

The Nishi project's separate Davis ordinance also addresses a recurring student-housing problem by examining parental household income for dependent students and requiring evidence of financial independence for the alternative route. Those are project-specific provisions; they should not be attributed to every Davis development. They illustrate an explicit policy choice Austin could evaluate rather than assuming that every student with low personal earnings is the intended beneficiary.

Austin's own 2024–25 reform proposals should not be mistaken for the law. The city's April 2026 code-amendment status lists C20-2024-010 as suspended after the June 5, 2025 hearing was postponed indefinitely. The current project page continues to say the hearing is postponed. Draft height allowances and affordability formulas are therefore proposals, not the rules used to assign this ledger's rent caps.

## The program created obligations. Its public records do not yet prove the full return.

The evidence supports a narrower and more useful verdict than simple success or failure. UNO generated recorded affordability commitments, identifiable application channels and fee-funded cooperative preservation. The current rules also offer materially lower ceilings in some configurations. Those are real mechanisms, but commitments and advertised prices do not by themselves measure completed delivery to eligible students.

Three weaknesses are demonstrated: the city publishes inconsistent denominators and totals; its student-facing directory does not match the full completed-property inventory in this snapshot; and the remaining older whole-unit restrictions have reported expirations concentrated in 2027–30. The public evidence does not establish the size of improper occupancy, the prevalence of overcharging, or the developer/public split of incremental value.

What would change this assessment is specific: the executed covenants and elections could resolve every count and rent basis; annual anonymized compliance/occupancy records could establish realized delivery; fee and award ledgers could close the off-site account; and parcel-level base-zoning versus UNO development models could estimate the exchanged value. A program that supplies those records can be evaluated in delivered student-months and dollars saved, rather than in marketing labels and incompatible counts.

## Which rent formula applies?

The same income band can carry different rent ceilings. A **60% MFI bedroom in the post-2014 schedule is capped at $1,260 a month** for single occupancy; the legacy opt-in schedule allows **$1,562**. A restricted whole apartment has a whole-apartment ceiling, even if the manager uses separate leases. Verify the property’s recorded election before applying a schedule. [City 2026 rent chart](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) · [Compliance guide, pp. 9–10](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026)

## Check the fees as well as rent

The 2026 guide includes mandatory service, amenity, view and other required fees within the rent ceiling. Its named exceptions are gas, electricity, water, wastewater, clean community, solid waste, drainage and street services. Optional charges must be separately itemized. A base rent equal to the cap is not enough information: request a written quote identifying every charge and which ones can be declined. [Compliance guide, p. 3](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026)

## Who qualifies?

The 2026 guide provides **two documented routes**. An approved need-based student-aid award can establish income eligibility without additional income documentation; otherwise, the manager verifies the household’s gross annual income against the applicable limit. Filing a FAFSA or receiving any kind of financial aid does not, by itself, establish that the approved-award route applies. [Compliance guide, pp. 4–7](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026)

Under the standard income-verification route (Option 2), the household is the ongoing residents of the legally restricted unit or bedroom. Regular cash contributions from outside that household count and cannot exceed 30% of its gross annual income; tuition-related payments must be reported but are excluded. Do not assume either that every parent’s total income is added or that support from parents is irrelevant. The manager must apply the documented household and income rules. [Compliance guide, pp. 4–7](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026)

**Returning residents have different rules.** An initially eligible occupied unit or bedroom may continue counting until household income exceeds 120% MFI. At renewal above the original entry limit, rent may rise to 28% of average gross monthly income, capped at comparable market rent. Thus a compliant restriction count is not necessarily a count of residents still below the original 50% or 60% entry limit. [Compliance guide, p. 12](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026)

## How to apply

1. **Contact the building directly.** Ask for its UNO income-restricted or SMART-housing application, the applicable income band, and the waiting-list procedure. Austin does not run one central application for these rooms. [City application guidance](https://www.austintexas.gov/housing/income-rent-limits)
2. **Confirm what is being restricted.** Ask whether the agreement applies to a whole apartment or an individual bedroom; the occupancy arrangement changes the rent calculation. Request the applicable covenant or certification if the answer is unclear. [Guide, pp. 9–10](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026)
3. **Choose the eligibility route and collect evidence.** For approved aid, provide the award notice and ask the manager to match it to the City’s approved list. UT’s current award portal is [My Financial Aid](https://onestop.utexas.edu/managing-costs/scholarships-financial-aid/my-financial-aid-system/). For the income route, the guide generally requires two consecutive months of recent paystubs, with specified alternatives for new employment or self-employment. [Guide, pp. 4–7](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026)
4. **Get the complete offer in writing.** Request the monthly rent, all mandatory and optional charges, lease term, occupancy basis, renewal provisions and any application or waiting-list costs before deciding. [Guide, pp. 3, 9–12](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026)

For program questions or a potential compliance problem, the City lists **HousingIncentives@austintexas.gov** and **512-974-3100**. Save the advertised price, application correspondence and proposed lease so the City can identify the specific issue. [Guide, p. 2](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026)

## Read the expiration dates

City-reported expirations for **12 completed pre-2014 whole-apartment projects**: 34 apartments in 2027, 35 in 2028, 60 in 2029 and 61 in 2030. **Another 23 opt-in bedrooms in two properties** have reported expirations in the same period (2 in 2027 and 21 in 2030); they are excluded from this chart. These are restriction expirations, not predicted demolitions or a verified schedule of tenant displacement.

## The public-record verdict

UNO created meaningful legal affordability obligations and traceable application routes. Public evidence is too incomplete to determine how many eligible students actually occupied the restricted spaces, what they saved, or whether those benefits justified the value of the development rights. The strongest measurable warning is the approaching expiry of the surviving older whole-unit restrictions.

## Source-linked schedules and obligations

### June 2026 rent schedules

| Policy cohort | MFI restriction (%) | Room or unit | Rent charged for | Monthly rent cap ($) | Effective date | Source URL |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Legacy whole apartment | 50 | Efficiency or one bedroom | Whole apartment | 1097 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 50 | Two bedrooms | Whole apartment | 1255 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 50 | Three bedrooms | Whole apartment | 1411 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 50 | Four bedrooms | Whole apartment | 1568 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 50 | Five bedrooms | Whole apartment | 1694 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 65 | Efficiency or one bedroom | Whole apartment | 1426 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 65 | Two bedrooms | Whole apartment | 1631 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 65 | Three bedrooms | Whole apartment | 1834 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 65 | Four bedrooms | Whole apartment | 2038 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 65 | Five bedrooms | Whole apartment | 2201 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 80 | Efficiency or one bedroom | Whole apartment | 1745 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 80 | Two bedrooms | Whole apartment | 1993 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 80 | Three bedrooms | Whole apartment | 2243 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 80 | Four bedrooms | Whole apartment | 2492 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy whole apartment | 80 | Five bedrooms | Whole apartment | 2691 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy bedroom opt-in | 50 | One occupant | Per person in restricted bedroom | 941 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy bedroom opt-in | 50 | Two occupants | Per person in restricted bedroom | 518 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy bedroom opt-in | 60 | One occupant | Per person in restricted bedroom | 1562 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Legacy bedroom opt-in | 60 | Two occupants | Per person in restricted bedroom | 859 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Newer bedroom | 50 | One occupant | Per person in restricted bedroom | 941 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Newer bedroom | 50 | Two occupants | Per person in restricted bedroom | 518 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Newer bedroom | 60 | One occupant | Per person in restricted bedroom | 1260 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Newer bedroom | 60 | Two occupants | Per person in restricted bedroom | 693 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Newer whole apartment | 50 | Whole apartment, any bedroom count | Whole apartment | 941 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |
| Newer whole apartment | 60 | Whole apartment, any bedroom count | Whole apartment | 1260 | 2026-06-01 | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) |


### June 2026 income limits

| Household size | Effective date | 50% MFI ($/year) | 60% MFI ($/year) | 65% MFI ($/year) | 80% MFI ($/year) | 120% MFI ($/year) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 2026-06-01 | 47050 | 56460 | 61150 | 74800 | 112900 |
| 2 | 2026-06-01 | 53800 | 64560 | 69900 | 85450 | 129000 |
| 3 | 2026-06-01 | 60500 | 72600 | 78600 | 96150 | 145150 |
| 4 | 2026-06-01 | 67200 | 80640 | 87350 | 106800 | 161300 |
| 5 | 2026-06-01 | 72600 | 87120 | 94350 | 115350 | 174200 |


### City-reported expirations; apartments and bedrooms remain separate

| Year | Whole apartments | Opt-in bedrooms | Properties |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2027 | 34 | 2 | ["Axis West Campus"] |
| 2028 | 35 | 0 | ["24 Longview", "Grand Marc at 26th", "Regents West at 26th"] |
| 2029 | 60 | 0 | ["21 Pearl", "Regents West at 24th", "San Pedro Flats", "The Callaway House Austin"] |
| 2030 | 61 | 21 | ["Crest at Pearl", "Tradition on Rio (formerly Pointe on Rio)", "Twenty Two 15 (fka Quarters at Bandera House)", "Villas on 26th"] |


### Policy rules and original sources

| Rule | What applies | Source URL | Source pages |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| cohorts | Legal schedule follows the property election and recorded agreement, not its marketing label or opening date. | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026) | 2–3, 9–10 |
| eligibility | Approved need-based student award route, or verified gross annual household income. | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026) | 4–7 |
| fees | Mandatory fees are included in the rent ceiling, except named utility/service categories. | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026) | 3 |
| monitoring | Desk/on-site reviews; required records; notice, findings and cure procedures. | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026) | 10–11 |
| renewals | Initially eligible occupancy may continue counting until income exceeds 120% MFI; separate renewal-rent rule. | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026) | 12 |
| terms | Compliant years and covenant control duration; inventory dates are not deed verification. | [Source](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026) | 2, 12 |


## Methods

## Scope and retrieval

Snapshot date: October 30, 2026. Downloaded all 2,430 records from Austin's Affordable Housing Inventory (Socrata dataset ifzc-3xz8). Selected records whose density-bonus field contains “UNO” or “University Neighborhood,” obtaining 83 unique project IDs and 83 unique contract IDs. Added Super Co-op (project 3271, contract 27) because the city's case study documents UNO trust-fund support even though the inventory does not tag it UNO. No claim is made that this captures every later trust-fund award.

## Classification

Preserved raw city names, program labels, lifecycle status, counts, income-tier quantities, monitoring fields and dates; added current marketing names separately. Whole-unit and legacy bedroom-opt-in classifications follow explicit city program tags. Post-2014 tags alone do not identify the elected denominator. Every physical-bed-count field is null pending physical and legal verification. The sum of income-tier quantities equals the affordable count in all 84 rows. Hotel entries with zero housing remain in the history. Released and expired records are excluded from the default applicant view.

Dates in 1939 and 3799 are treated as sentinels, not as legal expirations; the original strings remain available. Monitoring years 0 and 1900 become unknown. Do not infer a term from an opening year or equate an inventory-wide modification date with a substantive contract update.

## Directory and application joins

Downloaded AHOST's full public property endpoint and joined by normalized street address, with documented alternate-address/name checks. Retained conflicting counts and end dates instead of choosing one silently. Reviewed unmatched completed properties against nearby addresses and known aliases. Operator information links, observed application links and public professional contacts are recorded with retrieval status. A blocked automated fetch does not prove a page is inaccessible to a person. A successful fetch, application portal or directory availability flag does not prove a vacancy. No applications were submitted and no landlords, officials or residents were contacted.

## Evidence hierarchy and limitations

The recorded covenant, amendments, certification letter and release documents should control the final legal answer. None of the individual executed covenants was obtained in this investigation: the county public search returned a remote connection failure. Inventory dates are consequently city-reported dates, not independently verified legal deadlines. The official 2026 rent table and guidelines control the general explanation; operator pages are evidence of advertising and application routes, not a substitute for those rules. Historical guides help explain cohort differences but do not supersede the applicable current schedule.

No tenant records, live eligible-occupancy census, market-rent comparison sample, project financial model or enforcement-case outcome file was available. Results do not establish current vacancies, illegal occupancy, overcharging, causal effects on neighborhood rents or the dollar value of the zoning bonus. Statements about those topics are explicitly framed as open questions or hypothetical calculations.

## Reproduction and reuse

The exported JSON retains the structured property records, rent schedule, annual expiry cohorts, narrative, sources and these methods. The CSV preserves the property ledger with explicit count bases and verification flags. Source data are attributed to the City of Austin under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license stated in the retrieved inventory metadata. Other linked materials retain their own terms. The ledger is a dated research snapshot, not a live listing or official city determination.

## Sources and attribution

## Sources

- [Austin Affordable Housing Inventory](https://data.austintexas.gov/d/ifzc-3xz8) — Primary contract inventory; 2,430 rows retrieved; 83 UNO-tagged contracts plus one separately identified trust-funded contract.
- [AHOST public property endpoint](https://portal.atxaffordablehousing.net/get_all_properties) — Full public directory data, joined by address and verified aliases; does not certify current availability.
- [City AHOST explainer](https://www.austintexas.gov/housing/programs/affordable-housing-online-search-tool-ahost) — Official student-facing housing search route and availability limitations.
- [Rate My Rent SMART housing guide](https://ratemyrentut.com/ut-austin/smart-housing) — Pre-existing 57-building list; establishes that this is not the first public building list.
- [City student-housing UNO case study](https://www.speakupaustin.org/Customer/File/Full/dd6f15f6-ec17-454b-b705-648f3fd3e502) — Original July 2023 counts, cooperative awards, access audit and growth calculation; uploaded March 2024.
- [UNO existing-program analysis, June 2025 agenda backup](https://austintexas.legistar.com/View.ashx?GUID=AE70DD89-ACFA-4A3C-A852-EB94B9F0D2B1&ID=14239065&M=F) — Tables separating older active/expired units and later units/bedrooms; used for count reconciliation.
- [2026 UNO compliance guidelines](https://austin.widen.net/s/hxzhmpkbpr/uno_compliance_guidelines_2026) — Current general eligibility, fees, rent basis, monitoring and continuing-eligibility rules.
- [2026 UNO rent and income limits](https://austin.widen.net/s/wmkwxppmjk/uno_rent_rates_2026) — Effective June 1, 2026; full schedules reproduced as structured reference data.
- [April 2026 active code-amendment status](https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=472166) — C20-2024-010 suspended; June 5, 2025 hearing indefinitely postponed.
- [UNO amendment project page](https://www.speakupaustin.org/w11878) — Current public project status; proposals are not adopted requirements.
- [The Mark floorplans](https://www.themarkatx.com/floorplans/) — Observed SMART advertising; not a signed lease or verified vacancy.
- [The Mark price calculator](https://www.themarkatx.com/price-calculator/) — Itemized recurring charges for August 2027–July 2028; raises an unresolved fee-treatment question.
- [The Mark move-in information](https://www.themarkatx.com/move-in/) — Counterevidence: credit program described as optional, and outside insurance accepted in place of the damage waiver.
- [Davis rental inclusionary housing code](https://ecode360.com/44637230) — Design comparison: permanent restrictions and reporting/inspection requirements; not an outcome evaluation.
- [Davis Nishi ordinance 2523](https://www.cityofdavis.org/home/showpublisheddocument/9031/636559225331970000) — Project-specific dependent-student and independent-student eligibility provisions.
- [UT off-campus affordable housing resources](https://offcampus.utexas.edu/affordable-housing) — Student-facing referrals to SMART housing and AHOST.
- [UT My Financial Aid](https://onestop.utexas.edu/managing-costs/scholarships-financial-aid/my-financial-aid-system/) — Current UT aid system; the city guide retains older portal terminology.
- [Austin Monitor, April 2024](https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2024/04/city-eyes-code-amendments-to-increase-affordable-housing-for-ut-students/) — Existing reporting on student housing and proposed reforms.
- [Austin Monitor, April 2025](https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2025/04/west-campus-zoning-program-set-for-changes-as-city-plans-density-focused-upgrade/) — Existing reporting on planned UNO amendments.
- [Daily Texan, April 2025, syndicated copy](https://utexas.rent/from-houses-to-high-rises-how-zoning-regulations-density-bonus-programs-aim-to-reimagine-west-campus-living/) — Existing reporting on West Campus height and density-bonus proposals.
- [Travis County public deed search](https://travis.tx.publicsearch.us/) — Primary covenant repository; connection failure prevented individual-instrument verification.

**Reuse and attribution:** Adapted City of Austin Affordable Housing Inventory data: CC BY-SA 4.0, as stated in retrieved dataset metadata. Attribution: City of Austin; analysis and joins prepared 2026-10-30. Other linked source materials retain their own terms.