In a move that could bring some financial relief to struggling University of Texas students, the City Council is tackling a plan to amp up affordable living spaces. The intended goal is to alleviate the burden on over 24,000 financial aid recipients who are potential candidates for less pricey digs.

This Thursday, Council members will chew over a resolution for modifying the University Neighborhood Overlay—a program meant to bump up student housing since 2004. According to the Austin Monitor, the proposed changes aim at mandating windows in bedrooms and ensuring all sleeping quarters are up to snuff, equivalent to their market-value counterparts.

Also in the Council's crosshairs is the inclusion of areas around campus to allow some building heights to grow, a potential gambit to provide more housing options for students. Along with these expansions, the plan also looks to ratchet up commercial activity in ground-floor spaces, with the added perk of pedestrian and cyclist safety improvements.

On the campaign trail, Council Member Zo Qadri prioritized student affordability and life quality, a promise that seems to be taking shape with these proposals. "What we're working on when it comes to housing justice is going off of what we had done with the windows in bedrooms resolution, making sure that bedrooms have natural light ... making sure that inspections are done in these units and these apartment complexes," Qadri told the Austin Monitor.

Piling onto the issue, students confront a pinch when it comes to groceries, with no full-size store in the vicinity of West Campus—a concern raised by Isabel Webb Carey, co-founder of the University Tenants Union, in her work with city officials. "It's shown that students do best academically when they live close to the university, but it's also the fact that they can go see friends and they can be a part of organizations," Carey said, as per the Austin Monitor.