Methodology
The data decides. We don't. Every input, weight, and data vintage on this page is public; every building is graded by identical rules; the changelog below is the full history of what changed and when.
1 The accountability unit
We grade the operator, with buildings as children. Reputation aggregates up the graph (building → owning LLC → operator → parent), so it survives building rebrands and aggregates across a portfolio. Google rates a building name; nobody rates the operator across its Austin properties. Every edge in that graph is published only after it is verified against primary records (Travis Central Appraisal District, Texas SOS, the operator's own site).
2 Data sources
We ingest seven Austin open datasets weekly. One, code complaint cases, is the primary signal. Three more belong to the city's Repeat Offender Program, an escalation flag layered on top of the primary signal, for the small number of buildings serious enough to cross that program's threshold, which most West Campus towers never do. The remaining three corroborate the pattern from independent city processes: issued permits and certificates of occupancy track construction and delivery activity that has nothing to do with tenant complaints, and 311 service requests are a second, independent channel through which the same conditions get reported.
SOURCE: CITY OF AUSTIN OPEN DATA (SOCRATA) · CAPTURED August 10, 2026
| Dataset | Socrata ID | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Code Complaint Cases | 6wtj-zbtb | Primary signal |
| Repeat Offender Program: Registrations | 86z9-i27i | Escalation flag |
| Repeat Offender Program: Deficiencies | ge82-ij4h | Escalation detail |
| Repeat Offender Program: Activity | 5yf8-fm7j | Escalation detail |
| Issued Construction Permits | 3syk-w9eu | Corroboration |
| Certificates of Occupancy | f9mz-m6dy | Corroboration |
| 311 Service Requests (Code / Water / Energy) | xwdj-i9he | Corroboration |
3 The asymmetric rule
Complaint-based enforcement systematically under-reports, because tenants fear retaliation from a landlord who controls their lease renewal. So we score asymmetrically, and the rule is stated here in full:
A high complaint count is strong evidence of problems. A low count is weak evidence of quality. The absence of complaints is never rewarded as if it were proof of good conditions.
4 Fact vs. analysis
Everything on this site belongs to one of three registers, and the register is always visible in the type and color, not just in a label. A reader who never reads a word of the surrounding text still learns which kind of claim they're looking at.
Visual key: how to read this site
THE RECORD: reproduced from a primary source, never altered.
THE INTERFACE: labels and navigation.
WCII analysis: our reading of the record, always marked like this.
Facts are public records reproduced accurately, with a link to the original: a complaint count, a permit date, a court filing. Anything we derive (a score, a classification, a comparison) is an analysis, marked as one, with the computation behind it shown. We never assert a legal conclusion; where a pattern resembles a regulated category, we say "pattern consistent with…" and link the rule itself and the FTC's reporting channel, reportfraud.ftc.gov.
5 Grades
Every building's case file has a place reserved for one composite letter grade. That place is empty today, on every building, for the same reason.
No composite grade is computed or shown for any building until the scoring weights behind it are set deliberately and published on this page. When they are published, every building receives the same rule on the same day: no early access, no exceptions. The letter ceiling and every input that feeds the score will be stated here in full before the first grade ships.
6 The record keeps itself
Every dataset in §2 is pulled weekly, and the snapshot (not just the aggregate shown here, but the underlying rows) is committed to a public code repository. Every page on this site states the date its data was captured. Every snapshot is kept; nothing is edited out of the record.
Changelog
- v0.1 · July 2026: ingestion pipeline and conditions data established; scoring weights not yet set or published.
- 2026-07-10: this page rebuilt as the auditor's register described above; no source, score, or guardrail changed, only how it's presented.