Methodology & data sources

An independent service by EZOSHosting, Austin, TX. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by the City of Austin or Travis County. Official information: austintexas.gov.

This page explains where every fact on this site comes from, how current it is, and — just as importantly — what we deliberately choose not to show and why. Data pages exist to be checked, not taken on faith; this page is how you check us.

The "retrieved" principle

Every data block on this site is stamped with the date and time we last retrieved it from the source, not the date the site itself was last rebuilt. Those two dates are often different, and treating them as the same thing is a common way automated sites quietly go stale. We also don't trust a dataset's own declared update frequency at face value — City of Austin datasets are individually monitored for when they were actually last changed, and a source that stops updating gets flagged internally rather than silently continuing to display old information as if it were current.

When a dataset has no entry for a given address — no permit, no zoning row, no floodplain polygon — we display exactly that: no data on file. We do not interpolate from a neighboring address, estimate from an average, or infer a likely answer. An honest gap is more useful than a confident guess.

Sources we use

Source	Dataset	Publisher	Refresh cadence	What we use it for
Addresses	9s7j-tygf	City of Austin, Technology Services (GIS)	Daily	The base address list itself — location, address type, no owner or resident data of any kind
Issued Construction Permits	3syk-w9eu	City of Austin, Development Services	Daily	Permit history shown per address, most recent first
Zoning By Address	nbzi-qabm	City of Austin, Planning Department	Near-daily	Zoning designation per address, where a row exists
Greater Austin Fully Developed Floodplain	pjz8-kff2	City of Austin, Watershed Protection	Monthly	Austin's own, locally-defined floodplain layer — always shown together with FEMA's
Greater Austin FEMA Floodplain	93kh-rg74	Office of Emergency Management	Monthly	The federal flood-insurance floodplain layer — always shown together with the FDFP layer
Jurisdictions	3pzb-6mbr	City of Austin, Technology Services	Near-daily	Mandatory for every address — determines whether Austin-specific rules apply at all
Neighborhoods (NPA boundaries)	inrm-c3ee	City of Austin, Technology Services	As needed	The 95 neighborhood hub pages
Wildland Urban Interface Code	dgpb-zq6v	Austin Fire Department	Monthly	The WUI regulatory-boundary flag
Issued Tree Permits	ac2h-ha3r	City of Austin, Development Services	Daily	Recent tree permit activity per address
Historic Landmarks	8k49-bptr	City of Austin, Technology Services	Daily	Landmark status flag, where it applies
Recycle Collection Routes	ytb7-vtcd	Austin Resource Recovery	Monthly	Route and A/B-week context only — we link to the City's own tool for your actual pickup day, we never state one ourselves
Zoning Cases	edir-dcnf	City of Austin, Planning Department	Near-daily	Pending and recent rezoning cases
Roadway Work Zones	qyfh-gwei	Transportation and Public Works	Several times daily	Active road work and closures near an address or street

All of the above are published by the City of Austin through its open data portal at data.austintexas.gov. Every data block on the site links directly to the underlying dataset alongside the retrieval date.

Sources we deliberately don't use

Leaving a source out is itself a data decision, and we'd rather explain it than leave you guessing why a page doesn't show something you might expect:

• Trash pickup day, per address. The most granular dataset for this hasn't had a meaningful update in over a decade. We link to the City's own current pickup-day lookup tool instead of publishing a schedule that's more likely wrong than right. See our trash and recycling tool.
• School ratings or attendance data as a quality signal. We don't publish school ratings, rankings, or characterizations of any kind — for any source. Where a school attendance zone is factually relevant, we link to the district's own boundary tool rather than maintain our own copy of aging data.
• Building footprints/floor area. The most detailed citywide source predates a decade of active construction and would misstate current building size for a large share of properties. We don't display building-area figures derived from it.
• Travis Central Appraisal District values, ownership records, or any appraisal data. We don't collect, display, or estimate property values or ownership on this site, by design — see our TCAD protest guide for why, and where to get your actual appraisal information directly from TCAD.
• Crime data at the address or street level. Austin's own crime data is deliberately published no more precisely than a census block group — it does not include street addresses. We don't attempt to reconstruct address-level crime information from any other source, and we wouldn't publish it if we could; see our Privacy Policy for the broader reasoning.
• Anything that identifies a resident. No names, no owner data, no phone numbers, no reverse lookups. See About for the fuller explanation of that boundary.

Corrections and removal

If something on an address page looks wrong, is out of date beyond what our stated refresh cadence explains, or you'd simply rather the page for your address didn't exist, we handle both through the same respectful, no-account-needed process: our address removal page. Every request gets a response within five business days.

Data provenance

Source	Dataset	Retrieved
City of Austin Open Data	3pzb-6mbr	2026-08-30T04:33:36
City of Austin Open Data	3syk-w9eu	2026-08-30T01:58:27
City of Austin Open Data	8k49-bptr	2026-08-30T02:06:36
City of Austin Open Data	93kh-rg74	2026-08-30T02:04:51
City of Austin Open Data	9s7j-tygf	2026-08-30T01:57:50
City of Austin Open Data	ac2h-ha3r	2026-08-30T02:06:30
City of Austin Open Data	dgpb-zq6v	2026-08-30T02:06:02
City of Austin Open Data	edir-dcnf	2026-08-30T02:06:38
City of Austin Open Data	inrm-c3ee	2026-08-30T02:06:02
City of Austin Open Data	nbzi-qabm	2026-08-30T02:04:09
City of Austin Open Data	pjz8-kff2	2026-08-30T02:04:24
City of Austin Open Data	qyfh-gwei	2026-08-30T04:33:54
City of Austin Open Data	ytb7-vtcd	2026-08-30T02:06:36