We hope to begin sending out lease renewal offers to all eligible residents in March of 2024. If you are not eligible to renew your lease, you have received an email notifying of this. The lease year for Eagle Heights and University Houses ends on June 30, 2024, and the lease year for the Harvey Street Apartments end on May 31, 2024. When your lease renewal offer is available, you will be sent an email with the link to your online lease renewal in your My UW Housing. Please review the information and take the necessary steps to complete and accept your renewal offer, or to decline the offer by the deadline.
As the renewal process approaches, we want you to be aware of the following updates.
Rental Rates
As you receive your 2024-2025 lease renewals, you will notice the annual University Apartments rental rates increase. Rental rates in Eagle Heights and University Houses were increased by 3.8%, Harvey Street one-bedroom apartments were increased by 5% and Harvey Street two-bedroom apartments were increased by 2.4%.
We consider our rates and expenses very carefully to offer an affordable, welcoming community and be good stewards of our residents’ money. Without these annual increases, which average about $48 per month for a household, we would not be able to meet our commitments for wages, maintenance, capital projects, and campus services, all of which benefit our residents and the University Apartments community.
Smoke-Free
Since 2015, University Apartments has systematically and thoughtfully reduced the number of smoking-permitted apartments each year. This has allowed us to balance the needs of our current and incoming residents. We have seen a significant drop in the number of applicants and residents who desire to live in a smoking-permitted building. During this last lease year, we have dropped our number of smoking-permitted apartments from 250 to 66. We believe now, (at the start of the new 2024-2025 lease year) is the time to make our buildings entirely smoke-free to align with the rest of the UW–Madison campus.
Starting July 1, 2024, all apartments in University Apartments will be designated as smoke-free. This means that smoking of any material (this would include vaping) is prohibited inside all of our buildings in University Apartments. We will continue to allow smoking outside, 25 feet away from buildings, per the current smoke-free policy. Residents are still permitted to safely use candles and incense in their apartments.
If current residents are no longer interested in living in University Apartments due to this change, then residents are able to fill out a lease termination form in your My UW Housing. We require residents to give us a 90-day notice prior to terminating your lease.
Cable Television
With our desire to keep rates and expenses as low as possible for our residents, University Apartments will be discontinuing our cable contract due to the prices tripling starting July 1, 2024. If you would like to have cable TV after July 1, 2024, you may purchase cable for your apartment by working directly with a cable company. You will still be allowed with this change to use the Wi-Fi to provide streaming options for your apartment.