Johnny Sullivan, a doctoral student in social work at the University of Texas, has been living in one of three university-owned apartment complexes in West Austin for about two years. He and hundreds of other residents learned last week that new UT rules will upend their living arrangements.

Sullivan, 40, and his husband will have to move from one complex to another as a result of the changes. Some residents of the complexes who are not UT students will have to move out altogether.

UT's goal is to house 190 additional students at the Brackenridge, Colorado and Gateway apartments, which collectively have housed about 705 a year in recent years — the vast majority of them graduate students, with undergraduates making up less than 5 percent. Upward of 700 additional people live in the apartments as registered guests of students. Some of those guests are family members, who will be allowed to continue living with students, while others are friends who will have to move out. More than 960 students are on a waiting list for an apartment — a wait that typically lasts two years.

Under the new rules, which begin to take effect July 1, only students may live in the Colorado and Gateway apartments. The Brackenridge apartments will be exclusively for families, which UT defines broadly. What's more, the seven-year limit for living in these complexes is being cut to five, and monthly rents are going up roughly 5 to 15 percent.

"It's great that they want to get people off the waiting list, but the rollout has taken us aback," Sullivan said. "You'd think they could phase us in, let us finish out our programs. To have people move all at once is going to be a big lift on us residents and on their end, too."

Sullivan and his husband, who works at UT but is not a student, live in the Gateway apartments, West Sixth Street and east of MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1). They plan to move to the Brackenridge apartments, which, like the Colorado units, are along Lake Austin Boulevard.

"Currently there is an opportunity to have friends live with you," said Julie Lekstutis, assistant director for apartment operations in UT's housing and dining department. "We're very interested in moving in the direction of contracting directly with students and making sure anyone else living there has a recognized familial relationship."

UT doesn't have data on how many of the guests living in the apartments are relatives and how many are friends, Lekstutis said. The new rules will require students who want to live in the Brackenridge units to submit notarized documents explaining each familial relationship. For example, she said, if a student wants a sibling to live in the unit, the notarized statement must explain why — perhaps by noting that the sibling helps care for the student's child.

"We recognize that family members play an important role in being a support system for students," Lekstutis said.

Besides siblings, residents can include parents, dependent minors, fiancees and partners through marriage, civil union and domestic partnership, according to an email UT sent to students.

"Creepy at best" is how Shane Graber, a fifth-year doctoral student in journalism, described the requirement for students to submit notarized documents justifying the presence of family members. "It's kind of draconian."

Graber, who lives in the Colorado apartments, expects to finish his studies by the end of the summer. He said there was no consultation with students before the new policy was established. "This is the worst time of the school year to be dropping this on us because we're all winding up the semester," he said.

Lekstutis noted that the rental contract signed by students has a clause stating that the university reserves the right to change or cancel apartment assignments for administrative reasons. "We shared information with them as soon as possible," she said.

Martin Riedl, 28, a doctoral student in journalism who lives alone in a two-bedroom apartment at Gateway since his girlfriend moved out, could stay there if he's willing to have a roommate who is also a UT student, or he could move into a one-bedroom unit at Gateway or Colorado. One of the bedrooms in his current unit is larger than the other, but the rental rates listed by UT indicate that each resident would pay the same amount.

"I have moved a few times over the last years in Austin, but moving another time is not exactly a pleasant thing to look forward to," Riedl said.

Students have until April 29 to submit a form stating their occupancy preferences. Moves to newly assigned spaces will take place between April 1 and the end of the year, according to information sent to students. The vast majority of UT's 11,000 graduate students do not live in university-owned housing.

UT’s long-term plans for the three apartment complexes have yet to come into focus. That’s despite the fact that the university’s governing board spent $4.9 million for a report in 2009 that recommended rebuilding and enlarging the Gateway complex, leveling the Brackenridge and Colorado apartments, and accommodating the students at the enlarged Gateway.

The Brackenridge and Colorado apartments occupy prime acreage along Lady Bird Lake that could be developed into a commercial and residential district generating lucrative lease payments for UT, according to the report by a New York-based architectural and urban planning firm, Cooper, Robertson & Partners LLP. The firm recommended fast-tracking the reconstruction of Gateway, but that never happened.

The Brackenridge and Colorado apartments are part of a 350-acre, UT-owned parcel known as the Brackenridge Tract, which also includes Lions Municipal Golf Course, a UT biological field lab, stores, restaurants, a marina, shops and the headquarters of the Lower Colorado River Authority. UT and the city, which operates the golf course under a lease, are engaged in off-and-on negotiations aimed at preserving the course and redefining future development options on the Brackenridge Tract. The Gateway apartments are not part of the tract.