Charlottesville ADU Digital Library

Overview

This project is an ongoing collaboration between the City of Charlottesville, UVA Architecture, and a product management class. The goal is to build a digital library for ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit) designs that supports city planners, developers, and residents.

I am responsible for product framing, stakeholder analysis, and solution definition.

Problem

Charlottesville faces an affordability crisis driven by rising housing costs and limited supply. The city identified ADUs as a potential solution, but the process to design, approve, and build them was fragmented and inaccessible.

Architectural designs existed, but there was no usable system to store, navigate, or apply them across stakeholders.

Stakeholders & Constraints

This project involved complex stakeholder dynamics:

• Lower income families and renters
• Homeowners and landowners
• Architects and builders
• City planners and regulators

Each group had different incentives, access levels, and technical literacy.

Product Discovery

I focused on understanding:

• How non technical users access housing information
• Where friction occurred in approval and construction workflows
• What information needed to be standardized versus flexible

Interviews revealed that accessibility and clarity mattered more than feature richness.

Solution Concept

The proposed solution is a digital library that:

• Centralizes ADU schematics and metadata
• Supports different user views depending on role
• Balances flexibility with regulatory constraints

Rather than building a complex platform, the emphasis was on usability, governance, and long term maintainability.

Learnings

This project reinforced how product management changes when:

• Outcomes affect real people, not just users
• Constraints are political and regulatory
• Success depends on adoption across institutions

What I'd Do Next

• Test early prototypes with city planners and residents
• Define ownership and update workflows for long term viability
• Explore integration with permitting systems