The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Chris Fairchild, Jesse Rutherford & Neil Williamson Joined Keith On “Real Talk With Keith Smith!"

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Chris Fairchild, Chair of Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors, Jesse Rutherford, Nelson County Board of Supervisors, and Neil Williamson, President of Free Enterprise Forum, joined Keith Smith on “Real Talk With Keith Smith” powered by YES Realty Partners and Yonna Smith! “Real Talk” airs every Friday from 10:15 am – 11 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Real Talk With Keith Smith” is presented by Charlottesville Settlement Company, LLC, El Mariachi Mexican Bar & Grill, Fincham & Associates, Inc., Free Enterprise Forum, Intrastate Service Co, Mejicali and YES Realty Partners.

Are you getting any of those pictures? No, we haven't made the picture. I'm gonna go print one of just me and you. Good morning everybody. Welcome to Real Talk with Keith Smith. As you can tell, Jerry's not sitting in his seat today. He is off enjoying his family on a well-deserved vacation. We'll find out about how that went next weekend when he comes back. But we got three rock stars in front of me and then Chris. We got Chris Fairchild to my right

with chair of the Favanna County Board of Supervisors. After to his right is Jesse Rutherford. You're not chairman. What do you? No, I'm just a board of supervisors. Wonderful role to have. What district? East District, Lovingston-Sky. We'll talk about why that's so lovely versus being chair. Relative to Fluvanna. Nelson County.

Oh, sorry, I thought we were talking about Fluvanna. And the, Neil Williamson sitting across from me filling in for Jerry Slott. So he's got full autonomy to make whatever movie reference he wishes to make, or song reference on it. And they're passing notes. No passing notes, guys, on that. So first of all, gentlemen, how's everybody feeling? It's great. Thriving. Just having way too much fun. Way too much fun. Way too much fun already. Way too much fun. So I got a couple of pre-canned questions

and we'll just kind of see where the conversation goes and then we'll kind of just take it from there. So obviously I'm a housing guy, so we're gonna kind of talk about growth in housing. Everybody kind of knew that coming in. But what I really want to talk a little bit about is how everybody's approaching it a little bit differently from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and just have

a conversation and open it up as if we were sitting at a coffee shop or in our case a bar. So I'm just going to do a roundtable. Smart growth. What does that look like to you, Chris? Controlled. Controlled? Yeah. Do you need to expand upon it? Well, yes.

Expand. Growth is coming. I think it's whenever I hear that somebody say, well, you're against growth, that's a nonsensical conversation in my opinion. Growth is inevitable. And it's just a matter of managing it to reflect the community you want to be and not allowing outside sources to decide that for you. So one of the reasons I was kind of excited about today,

other than I enjoy everybody's company, is we have two rural counties on it. So Jesse, from your perspective. It's funny. When you talk about growth, that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I often am very critical of the word rural because not one person means the same thing. Depends on what life they've lived.

For example, the out of town or from let's just say New York or whatever, not throw Keith out there. Right under the bus. Right under the bus. Somebody needs to back it up. I will. I'm sure Chris will go back to that. I'll take care of that. They'll often come in here and say we want to preserve role character. And that, you know, from the aesthetic of that sentence sounds phenomenal. Everybody is like yes, preserve role character. Which often means different things to different

people. You know, to the logging company that's preserving their ability to live on the farm, continue to operate their farm operations and logging. Whereas some people might say, well, do you really need to cut trees down anymore? Do you really need to do some of those activities you're used to? Biosolids is always a controversial one. So when I think of smart growth, I often like referencing the history of areas in what they once were. So in Schuyler, is a great example, was once a thriving community with thousands of jobs. It had a hospital, car dealerships, all the things a person needed in the 19- A lot of people don't know that, right? Yeah, I didn't know the hospital part. Yeah,

they had a hospital and everything. Yona used to ran the US and Canadian operations for Tuleviki Tulekibi yeah when we first got here and you know it was really cool to walk through that buildings and the buildings to see the history of it you know it was more populist than Charlottesville at one point oh well and during the the depression I mean it was probably one of the more affluent parts of our region because it was untouched in terms of economics. They just needed more jobs. They needed more bodies to work the jobs.

So other than folks going off to war and all that, if you were close to the quarries, then you kind of always had a job. So when I think of smart growth, it comes down to infrastructure conversations, specifically water and sewer. You can't really, even a private developer trying to do private options, you can't even really have growth when you don't have much options for infrastructure.

So Nelson County is a hard place to develop. We've talked about this a hundred times. I'm changing my thinking on that, but I'll jump into that. Okay. All right. Show me some flat land. But between the topography... They have those rollers that kind of level the whole thing. Yeah. It's called bulldozers. We've seen some of that in an Albert Mall. We're not quite that ready. But all I'm saying is smart growth looks like where's your infrastructure, where is your main corridors. Nelson County has the 29 corridor going right through it. In that has the ability in some places, especially the town of Lovingston, to be able to facilitate bringing back some of those economic activities that once used to exist there.

Currently there is some. There's a lot of niche things. But in order to kind of attract something that brings more of an anchor to provide local jobs, you know, you got to look at the infrastructure piece. So. Jump back in. Neil, jump in, buddy. Smart growth is a stupid oxymoron. I like this. How do you possibly, it goes right up there with. Smith, never use that word again. Got it. It goes right up there with Army intelligence. It was invented many moons ago and then it fell out of favor. It went from smart growth to traditional neighborhood design to new urbanism.

And with each moniker change, the consultants got another year of traveling the country speaking about this new moniker and how it was so different than the last moniker which was just talking about smart stuff. Now I also think that it set you in a bad place. Well, if you're opposed to smart growth, what are you for? Dumb growth? I mean, it's a beautiful rhetorical statement. Now, I think that Jesse's comments about change are important. It's

not just World War II era. Those with even short memories can remember in the 90s, Disney DVDs were being pressed in Rutgersville at Nimbus. Guess what? It's not there anymore. Why? Well, the world changed and labor changed and change happens. What is it? Death and taxes are the two things and change is the third one. Yeah, it is the one thing you can count on. And so I think that as we look at how we grow, I

think expectations are important. If you're from Nelson County, you think two traffic lights is a jam. If you're from Arlington, you think two traffic lights, that's not even getting to the coffee shop. So it's all relative. And I think that each locality has to utilize their elected officials to speak to their representatives, I mean their constituents, and voice what they want to have happen. And the idea of smart growth, of interconnectivity, and efficient delivery of government services is critically important. But when it's taken to the nth degree, you end up having a restriction on development and you maybe have, let's say, oh, pull a number out of that,

95% of your land mass unavailable for development. That seems ridiculous. What county? More county. And the 5% that's left over isn't really buildable. And it's not 5%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll go into that. And the 5 percent that's left over isn't really buildable. And it's not 5 percent. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We'll go into that. So, I'm going to ask you one more question and kind of go around. So Neil, you're a policy expert, right? You sit in front of all the meetings. You know all the blame. Experts in overstatement. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to be kind.

And my youngest daughter is teaching me, Yvonne, daddy use kind words. So I'm trying to use kind words. It's not in the Yankee know how, you gotta learn it. It's not in the Yankee know how, you gotta learn it. It's a true thing though, that's true. So right now, one land use a thing or decision was made, let's say in the last 12 months or more, however you want to do it, that actually made sense,

was a good thing, then of course on the opposite side, one land use that was about as dumb as a box of rocks. I actually think that, well, I have been vocal about my opposition to the new zoning ordinance in Charlottesville. The overarching themes in there are net positive for a city that is 10 square miles. I would say the new zoning ordinance would not fit with the rural localities, but it is clearly enunciating what the political will of the city of Charlottesville is. That being said, the corollary, June 30, the judge, Judge Worrell, threw it

out and said it's null and void. Why? Thinking because of a technicality. A hired lawyer didn't file a report on time. So a lawyer that the county hired. The city. The city hired. The city hired. And I would push that the city should hire outside council for litigation.

But it needs to be watched. And I actually think the city made an error years ago deciding to do a comprehensive zoning ordinance change. Most localities choose to amend their zoning ordinance in pieces. If it goes to court, the amendment gets thrown out, not the entire zoning code. We're at a point right now that nothing is happening. That's a little bit of Monday morning quarterbacking, but the bottom line is right now we have a huge problem because prior to enacting the zoning ordinance, they repealed the prior zoning ordinance and in the opinion of the city manager

and by relation to the city attorney, they don't believe they have a zoning ordinance. And so rather than doing anything, they're doing nothing. Well, as someone who is a believer in free enterprise, when government does nothing, usually we're happy. We're not in this case. Well, I'm going to pick, though we're talking about Flavanna and Nelson and the rural counties, you bring up something that I would have in some of my notes here, and throw out to you two guys to jump in whenever you want.

Do you think land use and housing is more regional or specific to individual counties? In other words, does what Neil is talking about in the city of Charlottesville impact Nelson and or Fulvana? And vice versa. To me it's a two-sided answer. Yes, what you do impacts your neighbor. Decisions are on the county level. For the most part.

Meaning we're going to decide, I always say when I go down my driveway, it's up to me to decide down my driveway what's good for me and my family. And everything else comes after. I'm elected to look after the rights and future of Flouvanne County and that's where my passion is. I love the region. I'm a neighbor, but it all starts there. Certainly what we do can affect the rest. Yeah. Well, I mean, we just look at the economics of it, right? You know, if UVA has how many employees? 10, 20? I don't even know how many thousands they got.

Yeah. And the moment they start laying off is actually a really cyclical thing to Nelson County because we have a lot of people who work there in a myriad of different roles. Housing is not much different of a conversation. If Charlottesville-Albemarle cannot answer their housing problems, it becomes a Nelson County problem because at any point you're in that MSA of Charlottesville.

There's a reason why MSA exists. Metropolitan Statistical Area. Statistical area. Thank you. Because these people are willing to live within typically that region to work jobs in that region, right? So if you're a native of Flu Vanna, Louisa, and you see a random $300,000 house pop up and they're like the same commute distance to Charlottesville, I'm willing to take that change. So the failure of the region to try to answer some of those housing issues does impact our localities big time.

So, hey, Judah, I don't have my slide numbers with me, so I don't not remember the actual slide numbers. Look at that. Thank you. Appreciate that. Do me a favor, pull up slide one, if you don't mind, please. So slide, thank you, Neil. So slide one, you know, what I did is I did an analysis for the first six months, how we're looking at 2024 versus 2025. And we did it last quarter

in the whole car footprint. And actually, you know, the pace of homes closing was actually substantially down in the first quarter but if you take a look at the slide we actually picked up we're only about eight homes short versus year-over-year which is actually surprised me I didn't expect to see that but we're up roughly four percent in excuse me I forgot to shut my hearing aids off, is we're up roughly around 4% in the median sales price. But I wanna talk specifically about our county. And it, and I think that is, Judah, hang on a second please.

I think that is slide number three. I'm gonna give back to Neil if he wants to, thank you. Excuse me. Dude, we were the rock stars. 24 versus 25, number of sales went up 20.6%. We went from 165 to 199. So we've jumped 20% in the volume of sales. The medium sales price went from 350 to 385.

That's a jump of 385. And I wondered why. And it's all the new construction at Colonial Circle. There are 71 units. So in Florida, we're gonna peak and stop, right? Green, Neal's home county has actually been really rocking and rolling. And it's gonna continue to grow.

And we talk about that. But what's important about this is the price point, right? So if you take a look at – and again, I'm bouncing around a little bit. But if you take a look at Charlottesville – hang on one second, I got that number here somewhere on my thing, or somebody can shout out if they can find it. Thank you. I've got to find it on my end. I don't know where number two is. It's top of page two. Number two. If they can find it. Thank you. I've got to find it on my end. I don't know where number two is.

It's top of page two. Thank you. Look at that. Page two. It actually went down. It went from 216 to 208, dropped in 4% in sales, and the sale price went from 521 to 508. There's really no new construction to speak of.

So I think what's happening is what's impacting Charlottesville is impacting you and I, right, in our county. So the point to your point is they're coming and what I'm trying to get to this regional question, and I know you're smart enough to keep track on what's going on, but you know we've got all this pressure going on in Flavanna and what is our, what in your opinion is the next best step? Does that make sense that I go a long way around it? I think so but next best step is not do again what we did with Colonial Circle for one and it's how you define Rockstar if you're moving properties. I'm talking about from a sales perspective. Yeah. While, of course, that subdivision substantially, especially because of the 124 apartments

that people have to. They're about 80% occupied. Yeah, and it has to average something like 60% of the area median income. It cannot exceed 60%. That's going to raise the cost of living for everybody in Flouvanne. And the mass of those people won't be coming from Flouvanne. So in my opinion part of that answer is not to do what we've already done. I didn't vote for it.

This development was approved before I was on the board and then the subsidies from the county on the real estate tax on the apartments were not something that I voted I voted against. You want to jump in on this? Well it is a in differing counties and localities the issue of affordable housing and what affordable housing looks like is different and when I think of affordable housing in the outlying counties, oftentimes I'm thinking of established housing stock that is NOAA, naturally occurring affordable housing. My son lives in NOAA right now. It was his wife's grandmother's brick rancher on an acre and a half.

Well, you know what? It's affordable and I used to say what's a starter home? It's when you can vacuum the whole house and don't have to unplug the vacuum. That's a starter home and quite honestly we're not building starter homes anymore. You can't. You can't. You can't afford to because of the cost of the dirt. So the ideas that are being pursued about retaining naturally occurring affordable housing, especially in the outlying counties, make a lot of sense. That being said, there are also in the outlying counties as well as Albemarle and Charlottesville, there is a groundswell of support for affordable housing. The question then becomes who pays for it.

And if the community wants something, the entire community should pay. And it shouldn't be put on the new home buyer in the terms of a voluntary extortion, I mean proffer, where you are mandated. At least, I'll push back, at least, and this is the world I know well, right? I know extortion, I mean development well. I'm in New York again. I was waiting for this to happen. At least with the proffer, the old proffer

system, at least there was a – everybody knew the rules. Even if they weren't written, they were unwritten rules to do it. With this new proffer policy, particularly when you talk to elected officials, nobody really knows the rules, right? I'd rather deal with somebody saying this is what I need to get my vote so at least I can either make a decision, I can do this from a business side or say you know what, I can't and I walk away. How many Virginians does it take to unscrew a light bulb?

Ten. One to do the unscrewing and nine to remember how great the old light bulb was. I'm going to chime into this a little bit because when we talk about what does it mean to the community when growth doesn't happen, Nelson County, statistically speaking, every ten years our median age is going up ten years. And you're losing... And we're losing kids. Yeah, big time.

And so certainly I can understand, you know, as we think about services for a constituent, what that means in the dollars and how that translates. I think one of the more damaging things is losing children in communities, because you don't just lose that, you're losing this trademark of the history of Nelson County, of people who are able to carry on the legacies of their families with those family farms,

forces those family farms to get sold to either very affluent individuals. Basically, that's the only ones who are buying large properties in Nelson. Developers are not eyeballing Nelson County. It's affluent individuals. I'm pushing. Be careful.

I think you're going to see growth happen between Lovingston and Lynchburg. Amherst has a lot. It's getting looked at. Let's put it down. It might be getting looked at, but one of the things about us being Lovingston is the dead middle between Lovingston and Charlottesville. We do have a serious culture of people who wife works at UVA, husband works as some blue collared entity that's manufacturing in Lynchburg. So we get a little bit of that, but if they can afford it, they rather pay $150,000 less per house and live in Amherst. So you know what your median sales price is right now? It's like 400 and ‑‑ 432.5. Remember when I gave the presentation to your board and it was 401? 401.

And that was a few years ago and your board members didn't believe me? We just went in a couple of years from 401 to 432. Sale volume is down. Can I mention something? I would be interested to be here or off microphone to discuss proffers and learn more from your perspective. I have always said, one, I'm not so sure every time, well, I am sure often it's not the will of the community or the mass of the people when some developments are being proposed and people are trying to get them passed. I just watched last week, don't know if you all have ever seen the movie There Will Be

Blood. It is really a great movie. And really the gist of it is this oil guy that becomes a tycoon is very manipulative and very much all about forging forward and getting what he wants the way he wants to get it. And in part of it, when he really establishes this little area where he just found all the oil, he brings all the people together, he has a community meeting, a town hall. He sits and tells them about all the wonderful things this is going to do for them. And it's going to bring them

roads and schools and they're going to take care. yes we sure will send a lot of that money to church and and and I couldn't help but hear some developers reflect on some developers that we've talked to and you you know hey if it's a if it's a five member board all you got to have is three of 28,000 people to agree with it. And yes, right. And we just, end of this past year, I think he was, that was, anyway, I'll be, That was a rebuttal, by the way. We got rid of, Keith, you threw me off. Sorry about that, buddy. I should not do that to somebody with

my fellow ADD. You had certain amount of people, developers coming in. By right subdivisions. But it's difficult in your county now, our county now, it's only five so there's not much of a by right opportunity, right? You've got to do five divisions. So all we got rid of, it didn't say you can't develop. It just said- You have to rezone. So with all due respect, sir, that's not a by-write, that's a rezoning, which is a whole different item.

That's what I said, yeah. I heard by-write. We got rid of by-write. So you don't have that by-write option anymore. No, you didn't. You have by-write, it's only five. Yeah. Okay.

We got rid of that you can't take 25% of 100 acres. You mean the cluster development? Yeah. OK. Got it. So we want the people to have that say until that. But then the developer had the ability to say that without us participating.

And by the way, since it's by right, we couldn't have proffers. And a developer can come in, say they want to do this thing, and let's say it's not by right, and they get approval to build 300 and some homes at Nahor. And then they move on. And the rest of us are left to pay for the schools, the fire trucks, and so on. And I get all that. And then I'm going to just push back a little bit.

So what about the opposite side, right? So what about the side where Green County for for existence, I know this personally, there was a project that came up that would have been a wonderful, in my opinion, infrastructure impact on the county. There was a half a dozen people that opposed it and it got shot down. Well, ultimately it's going by right and they're going to get everything that they don't want. And oh, by the way, they won't get water, they won't get sewer paid for and so forth and so on. So how do you reconcile the opposite when there is a smaller number of people opposing the development, right, and using them as the litmus test for the full county. Well I'd say, so somebody actually, well it's in your notes about today's conversation about if you get a small minority that shows up. That's what I'm talking about. Well the average board member isn't looking at those six or ten people and

going well the people have spoken. The average board member got elected because they know their constituents and they know their constituents and they know their county, they know their district, and they're having phone conversations, they're being, people stop them at the food line. That's why I wanted you to say what you said because a lot of people don't know all they see is the half a dozen people. Yeah, almost, I think almost every board member, if not every board member, would tell you that there is zero reality to the six people that showed up. God bless them. Great to come out and they can say things that have a voice that's stronger than mine to my fellow board members sometimes. I'm just saying decisions weren't made just because those six people showed up. Yeah. So when it comes to housing, just generally,

and I look at it from the local sphere, and I like to look at housing and freedom in the same thing. Because when our founding fathers wrote some stuff down, they said, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What did John Locke write? Right. What did he?

John Locke wrote, life, liberty, and property. And property. Jefferson changed it to pursuitursuit of Happiness. Thank you. I forgot about that. But the premise of that is, is a person can truly live that liberty of the American thing when they actually have full control of this thing,

where they get to raise a family, do these things, and so long as the injuries of what they do do not exit their property bounds. And when I look at a native Nelsonian who's sitting there trying to fulfill that story that his family once was able to do in Nelson County for 200 years, right? And that's, I mean, my family history and my mom and I

goes back hundreds of years to Nelson County and every year that goes by, I got less and less relatives being able to participate in the same stories that we all did. And by virtue of that, you know, Nelson County produced the sliding scale. Are you familiar with the sliding scale model for zoning? So you know, yeah, you can have 100 acres, but you can do 12 and the first two got to be a couple acres, then it goes to five, then it goes to 10, then at some point you're getting

in there, you're like, well, by golly, you know, well, that lot, if you had five kids kids two of them are getting two acres and I need to sell this five acres over here all that to say is to truly live the story of your community that native demographics and ability to be able to participate on that subdivision piece and we have some family subdivision rights that do exist. Does Fulvanna have that? Oh yeah, Fulvanna has an awesome family subdivision. Is it like one acre lot minimums? I believe it's two. Yeah. You got to have a 30-foot easement that acts, that touches a public right away, but it's very friendly towards family subdivision. And that's a good thing, but even in then, that required a family that had generational property,

which isn't always. I've got clients who are buying property in full of our county to literally do that very thing. Yes, to do that generational thing. But if you were that working class individual who lives in some area, and your mom bought the company house, and then you want to live, you see a parcel of land that comes up five acres and the guy's like, I'd be willing to subdivide

it to you but I can't because of minimums or whatever that may be. Actually, they're not infiltrating that. My overall premise is saying that, you know, it's that Scottish saying, a man's house is his castle, his land, his kingdom. Housing to me is an inerrant thing that I think everyone should be able to have access to ownership, not necessarily subsidized, but utilizing the free market mechanisms that do exist to do those things. And with that, we won't have scarce land and housing situations like in Nelson where the

median price is $400,000. Working class man isn't participating in the housing market. Can I just add two things? Yeah. I have to jump ahead of everybody. One, I am absolutely property rights. With a lot of conditions. While I've also learned that what you do affects me.

And so we had a guy who wanted to put a solar, lifelong he's third generation fluvanna, wanted to turn about 200 acres into solar and he's saying, property rights, it's my property, I ought to be able to do what I want. This is out in Brimo, very rural area of the county. I said, so that 200 acres over there, somebody wants to build 600 apartments on that 200 acres, you okay with that? That's their right, they own it. Nope. 200 acres over there. Somebody wants to build 600 apartments on that 200 acres. You okay with that? That's their right. They own it. Nope. Right? Of course not. So there's a but there's a solar lobbyist that go around telling all about property rights.

Well what that's going to turn is okay then. Yeah but Chris that's got. You can put solar and housing. You familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs? The right to do what you just mentioned the IRS or whatever. The right to do what you just mentioned, the Irish or whatever. The right to do what you want to do. Let's let Neil jump in because I see that big grin. Well the reality that I see is that, and I'll relate it to a story, I lived in a house for 24 years, loved it. The area behind me was wooded. Somebody bought that area,

put up a big old house, that was fine. Then they put up a great big auto repair metal building that every morning my wife opened the bedroom shade and that's what she saw. Well needless to say we moved. That was my property right. That gentleman had every right, he was not in an HOA or any other covenants. But the concern that I have when you hinder solar or housing or anything else, rather than saying no, say yes and. So yes, solar and buffers, significant buffers that would prevent and yes and, you know, bonds that would prevent and yes, and, you know, bonds that would guarantee that when that gets retired,

it gets taken care of. Turns back into a field. It, it, it, whatever, whatever. There's a lot of issues on that end of it coming up, but. There are, there are a lot of issues. At the state level. But I think that the solar piece also people are a little math challenged with how much solar is going to be the final solutions for the energy needs.

But I in a non-political way, I do think that the all of the above solution is not a bad idea. That being said, if there is a community that has a comprehensive plan, which by the way every community has to have, and those 600 apartments are part of that comprehensive plan, you bet your BIPI I think they should be approved. Because that plan is what you guys said you wanted to do. The issue that Mr. Smith raised with regard to Greene County, that particular parcel had been dedicated to residential since the 1970s in the comprehensive plan

but not the zoning. One of the Free Enterprise Forum's biggest heartaches is you have a comprehensive plan that says A, but then you wait to get your proffers and everything else to rezone it to do what you said you wanted to do and it just, it's a non sequitur. And part of the political reality to that is two boards prior to one because it's every five plus, it's five years? Five

years. Every five years. So now you know that may have you know that's cycled out that this current board to Chris's point based on his conversations with his constituents does not match that. Now that's when Chris and his board need to now change the comprehensive plan to match whatever the community's reality is at that given point. And that's generally, excuse me, that's generally the struggle with the comp plan

and the zoning is they never parallel one another on that. That's a great point, thank you for that. And second, Oh, let me write that down. Yeah, yeah. Chris, notice Mark growth. Shoot, that's what's happening. So, he didn't say it was smart, but let me write that down. Chris, notice my growth. He didn't say it was smart, but I gotta write that down. By the way, just before, can you hold on to that train of thought? Yeah. Okay. So do you know what the AMI is for two persons and 60 percent in our county is, at every minimum, it's $60,420. So a two-person household, so going back to that

apartment complex, so that's a lot of money. So you have to, you cannot exceed $60,420. That's a big number. And that's about half the AMI of the MSSF. Half of the AMI. That's a lot, annual median income. So what's important about that project, it doesn't go by what the area median income of Havana County is it goes by what the MSSA is. So that and and the rents on those things are not as low as everybody thinks they are. But go ahead I'm sorry. The only other thing I was gonna say, so the conversation we've had about our comprehensive plan is, so one board member will say we said around Lake Bonicello, it's a planning

area that we're going to have it, and it's in our comprehensive plan and so on. Well, okay, we're running into aqua concerns, very notable concerns from the people in that area. Well, that wasn't such a subject five years ago when the comprehensive plan, now more than five years ago, COVID has pushed it back some. Some of the pressures that you experienced during that growth, then people, before you get to your new comp plan will go, oh, wait a minute, that's not feeling good. But the main one I was gonna mention was,

I think it's 17 times that in our comprehensive plan, it says maintain our rural character. So an argument back against the board member who's saying, wait, wait, we said we're gonna do it, comprehensive plan, it says maintain our rural character. So an argument back against the board member who's saying, wait, wait, we said we're going to do it, but it also says 17 times maintain our rural character. Now, we can argue and debate of what that means, but that's what the citizens do when they elect somebody. They've expressed their opinion in that.

And those people- How does Savannah define rural character? For the real estate- For the real estate agents I know that's how you can argue and decide what that means. For the real estate agents that may be listening, and I know you do general real estate, Jesse, it's like the new home inspection contingency addendum. The state created this vague language that it used to be it was clearly you could not terminate the contract unless it was a material defect. Now it's just whatever you interpret it is to do that. So the problem is, is the way the base document was written that the definition of rural character

was not clearly defined and it was kind of baked into the document, because I was part of it, was baked in the document to make it vague to start with, to have this argument. Look, the reality of it is, our personal county that I have not lived there as long as you have, is the growth is coming, the prices are going up, my taxes are going up.

We are doing a great job on trying to change that ratio of commercial versus residential. Yeah. If we ever get to 10 percent in my lifetime, that'll be freaking huge. I'll just say because it's so much of a closed session, there's a lot of good stuff really. You're still not going to get to 30 percent. I'll bet you. Why don't you want to bet?

There's some things that are going to shock your numbers, I'll bet you. What are we going to bet? That's chicken dinner? Chicken dinner. Chicken dinner? No, we don't do that. It's okay. I respect you too much to push back on closed session. What number are you shooting for?

I'll let my dear friend Neil jump in what the panacea is, is what the perfect balance should be. Well, I will say never bet against an elected official coming out of closed session. The only reason I'm betting is I'm looking across to the bar, I'm paying for it one way or another. Most locality nerds would say if you have a 30% commercial contribution to your entire tax base, that is a good balance for 70% being property taxes. That being said, if you look back to, we do a report for the Chamber of Commerce called the retail report, and if you look back to the years that Louisa and Green County opened up the Walmart and Lowe's

centers, Green County, I'm familiar with the numbers, they were having one cent of every five cents collected of sales tax goes back to the locality. They were receiving a million dollars a year in sales tax prior to the Lowe's and Wal-Mart opening up. Now they receive $3 million a year. That's a big difference for most localities. A $2 million swing in revenue. The reason for that is retail follows rooftops. And vice versa. But the reality is that we whenever you see this many folks trumpet, growth doesn't pay for itself. That is perhaps true if you look at the property tax revenue generated by development. That is perhaps true if you look at the property tax revenue generated by development. That is not true if you consider the one step further, those people eat, they buy stuff,

they build stuff, and they are active parts of your community. The free enterprise forum believes that people are the greatest asset any community has. And Jesse's comment about children, and we consider children people too. Because I think that that is really the heartbeat of the community. And so having more people isn't necessarily a bad thing. That being said, how you accommodate that growth is the challenge before these boards of supervisors and city councils? So can I ask you, so understanding what you're saying about

it's not all about just the real estate tax to decide if it's a net positive. So I say to people, look at Richmond, Hampton Roads and Fairfax. They got a lot of jobs, a lot of people. How's the cost of living going for them? And so if more means lower cost, where is that? And you know this stuff. I don't mean it sarcastically, but what I say to people often is, where is that oasis that's a monstrosity of gobs and gobs of growth and thousands and millions of people that their quality of life and their cost of living is better than living.

It's the same place that the winning lottery ticket numbers are held. It doesn't exist. However, policies that were put in place that restricted development in smaller portions of localities hindered development. And that hindrance of development creates leapfrog development. There was a time that I lived in northern Virginia back in the 80s and you could see on Route 7 back long before there were all these other ways to get in. You would see West Virginia license plates coming in to service Fairfax County, Arlington and D.C. Those were the service workers. And we're running into that in construction today with the lack of construction workers

in the area. I can name a lot of outfits that come out of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, on the western side. I know a lot of guys who are rolling in from West Virginia to work in like Winchester, Harrisonburg away. Those jobs, you know, that would otherwise typically be serviced by local guys. And they're high paying jobs. And they're high paying. I'll put it this way, I utilize some contractors in my line of work who will drive up from the North Carolina border, stay three nights, work the generic wage up here, we put them up, they get a good living wage and they go back.

Work those days. They work those three, four days, they go back. And you know, I look at it from Nelson County's visor when it comes to workforce availability, for every three jobs in Nelson County, two people, Nelson County in Nelson County jobs, two people drive from outside of Nelson County to work the job in Nelson County.

So I'm going to talk about that a little bit about the land trust and something that I was shared with Chris and see if he can help me out here. But what this is called when you take a look at the income from housing is direct, indirect and I just lost the third one. Help me out there, Neil. It's direct, indirect. There's a third word that's escaping me at the moment, but the Regional Housing Partnership is partnering with Walden Cooper because to take a look at what the real cost

is to localities for housing, not just the direct, it's the indirect, induced, thank you. It's induced, direct and indirect cost and what the costs are. So we're gonna get some real actual data for each jurisdiction for the car footprint of the MSA because it does not exclude Louisa, it excludes Louisa to go ahead and do that.

But I'll let Neil chime in and then I want to ask a question of Chris. Well the other thing to note is that to look the long term and the idea we often talk, you guys have been through plenty of public hearings. What are the three things you hear about every time housing is proposed? Water. Water. Traffic. Schools. Schools. Yeah, those are the three things. You don't have that enough. We should be talking about sewer. Water and sewer. Those are core infrastructure

things and those are core functions of government in my world. I also think that the idea behind growing your commercial base is a net positive not only just for jobs, but it keeps people closer to home and that has a positive environmental fuels. If you're biking, I guess that doesn't count. You wrote here, right? Let's not get Chris started about bikes on 53. But the key element to this is opportunity. And the idea of Keith and Spandex, I just can't unsee that. I'm a little not okay.

Not okay. Not okay. That is not okay. You guys are just jealous. But I think that the part that I, the disconnect I see in localities from their ruling boards is this housing bad thing. I think housing is good. And oftentimes what I have heard from elected officials is housing is good provided they bring the treats, the proffers,

the school sites, whatever it is. Or housing is good if they donate 20% of their project to the housing trust fund. I mean, all of those types of ideas are out there, and it seems people lose track of the fact if you do that, you're making the rest of the housing more expensive. So to make it a little bit more personal, so as you know, my mom and dad are moving in with us and we're blessed to be able to do that. And sold their home, building a little, what are we calling it? A terrace level independent living apartment. I'm forbidden to call it a basement apartment. Sounds like smart growth. Well, no, it's smart because if I call it a basement, my mother beats me.

Unhoused people run, with the spoon. But, but in any event, we're blessed to go ahead and do this. Many people aren't, right? We have clients that we're working in, in the Lake Monticello area that have reached these age and life that we're trying to sell our house and we can't figure out where they're going to go because of all these numbers we talked about. But I'm going to rally it back a little bit. It started last cycle, it's still continuing this cycle. My personal home, I pay the same amount of dollars if I was

in Albemarle County. And that's never happened before, up until the last cycle. So I am now it's a little bit different, it, a little bit different as the acres of Lake Monticello and so forth and so on. But if you were to pick my house up and drop it in Glenmore, the exact amount of money that I am paying in Flavanna County will be in Glenmore. And I think it's directly related and I'm excited to hear about, we've got some stuff coming in is think it's directly related and I'm excited to hear about we've got some stuff coming in is

that it's this 70-30 ratio that's so much of the tax base is on the rooftop. So, you know, it's important for us to try to get that moving forward. But I'm paying the same amount of cash as if I was in Glenmore. So, again, we agree we need more business development, but again, business development brings more people. You know, when the Walmart community, when the Walmart distribution center came into

Zions, at one point they were new, and I don't know if it was a year or what. And the guy managing the facility gave a talk to, I don't remember what it was in the county, maybe a chamber or something. And they were running ads in Stanton and Richmond to get employees. They could not fill all the positions they had. So yes, God bless the people that are local, that got to have a job and stay local.

And of course nothing is the best answer for all things. You know, everything we do has a yin and a yang to it. A few years ago, I sat in at Harrisonburg, a speech by their economic development director for the city of Harrisonburg. I know it's for Rockingham County. And talking about all the development they're having coming in to business development, which is great. They're getting gobs and gobs of it. A mass of their employees are coming from Northern Virginia.

There comes a point when those people who are driving down from Northern Virginia go, honey, it kind of sucks. And what do you think about Mennonites? Living there, a bunch of nice Mennonites and trees, and they end up moving there. And so yes, they're having all that, but I'm not sure it's ultimately helping their economy to have all of that business growth. I am pro-business growth.

I'm just saying there's two sides to it. Yeah, well the business is, I mean, I feel enough of commercial real estate to know, and the businesses are not coming to Zions Crossroads or even Louisa side of it anymore because of the fact that that question they're actually looking at this where is my people coming from I don't think they did enough homework when when Walmart came in but had an interesting conversation with the planning director for Augusta County I think

was last week on it you know what the biggest concern in Gusta County is right now? It's not waters, not sewer, you know, from development. It's taking care of old people. It's because the popular, it's like the, I can't remember, it's the second or the third destination for retirees coming out in the northeast, yada, yada, yada, and that kind of thing. And then he's like, look, we got infrastructure, we got roads, roads we got what I need is more emergency services I need more hospital beds I need more medical stuff which I was like because I that's the first time I've ever heard that oh by the way we got another one which is

health care yeah Nelson County we have a similar story with that I mean we have a aging population having the winter green resort area, obviously, it's not really where you start your family and raise your kids, most likely. But as we've seen the needs, it's like, wow, we're getting different kinds of needs. You know, a fall risk, you know, my grandfather has fallen unfortunately a few times.

He's getting an ambulance every time he falls. And compound that, you know. Well, and I think that's where elected officials know their constituents from the Food Lion chats. I mean, that's really, people don't recognize how lucky we are to have that kind of representation. Amen. But that being said, it's a double-edged sword because I was reading, because this is what I do in my free time, the Albemarle County's implementation plan

for their comprehensive plan, because you got to have a plan for the plan. And it spoke of... Then another plan. Right. It spoke of the in order to sustain the level of services our residents demand, taxes will increase. Now, it wasn't that explicit but it was pretty doggone close that the revenue will not equal it.

Whether that's going to be in emergency services or if it's going to be in aging services, people come here from other places and have this vision. I always think of the folks that moved to Arizona and then plant the very plants and gave their allergies. That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. But you do have these folks that come from places like New York and they have their own ideas.

Even if it's 30 years they're here, they still have these New York ideas. Yes. It's over 30 years. Over 30 years. Whoa, they still have the same ideas? Same ideas. Trust me. But it is something that elected officials have to grapple with.

And understanding those community needs and understanding why you have huge costs. Albemarle saw a big increase in their first responder costs this year because a safer grant 20 salaries they had to pick up. And localities are using those grants to get where they need to get to and instituting paid fire and EMS. There was a time you wouldn't even think of that in Flavanna and Nelson. We just did it in Flavanna a couple years ago on the rescue side. We're heading towards it on the fire side. And it's a huge cost.

Yeah. It's a new employee and liability center. But it is what is demanded by the residency. Not only that, but you don't be a baseball coach or firefighter. You don't have the volunteerism that you had in the old days in a community-minded... Right. Any of those civil organizations like Burt and Rotary, I mean, you're just struggling for volunteers, churches.

Yeah. struggling for volunteers, churches. It is true and it is, but I think that the way that it impacts locality spending is really interesting and that lack of volunteerism and there are really strong demands on first responders now in terms of level of training to be qualified to go to a ski incident at Wintergreen, you need to be very well trained to do that. I remember in 1987, got out of the Corps in 1986, 1987, Yona and I went on the rescue squad, Yona was life support, I was general EMT, but I did most of the driving because I had a lot of EVOC training when I was in the Corps, right?

They just gave me a set of keys. They said, go, you can drive. It's changed. It's changed dramatically, right? And they just gave me a set of keys. And the cost of those ambulances is key. It's crazy. Fire trucks, now a million bucks. Just a typical.

And a year away. That's a used one, honey. And a year away. That's without it getting outfitted. Without it getting outfitted. So today, what I wanted to do was just have four guys have a conversation about stuff that were important about it and get everybody to share their thinking and all that stuff. I didn't have this panacea, a Pollyannic idea that everybody was going to walk out in Kumbaya and be on the same page. Big words, Keith.

I know that hurt me. My tongue is a little twisted a little bit. But what I wanted to express to everybody is even though we're on different sides of the fence on stuff, we still have a conversation. We still enjoy each other's company, so forth and so on across the board. And if we can get back to that, that's just a win-win for everybody.

Well, one, it's democracy. Two, not everybody's background experiences and all are the same. And therefore, if you have everybody elected that thinks the same, you'll have people who aren't served. So I know you, I'm going to expose to you gentlemen this question. I know you're well enough to do this. From the time that you've got into your seat, what's one thing that changed your mind, right? That you were fixated on one thing, sat in the seat, learned a little bit more about

a situation, and changed the way you thought about it. Does that make sense? Does that question make sense? That question makes sense? When you're at your elected seat level, you walked in with this vision on a topic and then ended up changing your mind after you got a little bit more education on it. You have one that comes to mind? Yeah, I'll hit this one. I've talked about this one multiple times with people who run for boards or have run for boards. It's like one of the three promises when I first ran for office in 2017 was revitalizing the towns of Levinson Skyler,

broadband throughout Nelson, and access to career and technical education. And though my philosophy and belief in career and technical education, because obviously my occupation, I'm surrounded by those guys, framers, welders, masons, roofers. What I really struggled with

once I got into office was dealing with the culture of how do you convince society to actually do career and technical education. And it was one of those things where I kind of like with housing you build it and they will come. You have a cultural issue right now. And we beat the horse dead a thousand times explaining how four-year education was a bad decision and we spent trillions of dollars in doing that and career and technical education is the answer. Well, a lot of the kids who aren't doing the four years aren't doing career and technical education either. And some of that is access. I'm not going to disagree with that. Some of that is an access issue. But a lot of it

comes down to a motivation and a values thing too. Instead of coming out and becoming a roofer in 100 degree weather, you're looking at Target and they're doing $30 an hour and an AC. I'm not going to blame them. But that's one that I think we as a society are truly going to have to figure out, and how do we get these demographics since the Great Recession, because we spent a great job in the last ten years, both beating up four-year education, as well as those blue collar type jobs in construction and saying, don't do it, you'll be poor. So give me a short version of that.

What's the one thing? What's the one thing that we're gonna do? No, no, that's- You're asking to summarize your question? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, basically Korean technical education. You expected to get further along with that than you actually could.

Yes, I expected that in the first couple of years, we'd be able to knock this out of the park and then we'd be providing all these programs. And in reality, you're also working with not just that, but also the culture of it. So did you find, Chris, I'm going to try a different way. Did you find you were trying to accomplish something that you thought you could do as a business owner and get hit up with a bunch of red tape and staff pushing back? Have you experienced that at all? In business? No, no, no. At the county seat. Right. Have you hit with a lot of red tape or staff saying you can't do this or you can't do that? Does that make sense? Does that question make sense? Yeah, I don't think so. As long as it's legal, I think it's, you know, if there's any question of something's legal I typically know that there is a question of if it would be legal or by does the

state allow you or so on so that's in my case typically vetted with our county attorney before it ever comes up to something like that and then from there it's just knowing if you have the votes as far as red tape goes there's not a lot of red tape in so far in most of what I've wanted to see accomplished. It's just... So you've been able to get your vision across the table. I think so. Good for you.

Oh, wait, I know so. Good for you. Yeah, yeah. And you wanted to say something. Yeah, two quick things. Number one, to Jesse's point, the City of Charlottesville is in the Chamber of Commerce are doing something called Next Gen Skilled Trades. That's the first Saturday in October and you can go to nextgenskilledtrades.com. It's going to be a great show. It's a Saturday. They're trying to get to the high schoolers but it's also open for those over high school. It's just one more. It's not going to solve

the problem but it's an interesting thing that's going on. The one thing I wanted to say which Keith will appreciate, I've been doing this 23 years and the one big philosophical change was the idea of a community land trust, not the community part of it but the land trust concept. I'm a property rights guy through and through and it took me

probably 10 years to get over the fact that I buy a house and I don't own the land. I've gotten there. It is a model, not the only model. I don't want to give robbery liberty a box of cigars, but it's part of the silver buck shot, and it's one of the solutions along with changing what we define as affordable housing. Jesse and I have talked many times about manufactured housing being a part of the solution and locality seemed to be opposed to that. So I think there are still ways to go, but when we have open minds to think about these things and the next step of these things, like the judge not knowing the old

ordinance wouldn't automatically fall into place, these are important steps that only happen when you have these kinds of conversations. So thank you for having these. Yeah, so we have three land trust homes coming at Colonial Circle. I'm not asking anything from the county for I've got funds to do it. They're going to be ranging between 240 and 260 for three bedroom townhouses, which is pretty effing awesome. My goal is to try to keep Fulvanah people in Fulvanah. So if you know anybody that's checked those boxes,

let me know. It's not a 60% AMI. It's at 80% AMI. So that $60,000 is close to around 80,000 on it. We're a little over in time. But real quick, your favorite lunch spot. Can I quickly give my answer to the question you asked us both?

I'll make it quick. My struggle that I've learned is, and I learned this on CPMT, CPMT, Community Policy Management Team, that approved social services funding back before 2010, I was on it a couple years. I was put on it because I was a conservative, got on there and realized when you're dealing with four-year-olds that are getting abused, it's hard to draw the same lines. Similar in being on the board, you find yourself voting for stuff that you ache over, mainly in budget season.

But you see some of the inside that you were elected to show up and learn. And so as a conservative, you go, gosh, I mean, we already had an X amount of increase in assessments. It's going to increase people's taxes. But how do we not? So that's the, that line has moved. I am so glad you said that because that brings out

the empathy in your heart, which I know you have. It's not all about yes and no, there's the rest of it. And the other thing I was gonna say is just, Fluvanna has an 88.4% homeownership, which is off the charts, and we have a 3% unemployment. So what we're doing is working pretty well. The prices are going up, but we'll save that for a different argument. Incomes are going up too.

Your number one lunch spot in Fulcana County. Put you on the spot. Oh, I can't do that. Who's your favorite child, Keith? Now I know who's an elected official. The politician just came out. My kitchen. Your kitchen.

Yeah, Keith. Now I know who's elected official. The politician just came out. My kitchen. Your kitchen. Good lie. Because I know you can't cook. I'm living off of tomato sandwiches right now. Okay. Well, thank you for not stepping into that. I thought I'd throw it out there to see if you could do it. So guys, thank you very much for joining us today. Jerry's back next Friday and it'll be Jerry and I and I'm sure I'll get picked apart on a couple things. Thank you, Neil. Thank you, Jesse.

Thank you, Chris, as always. Thank you for having us. And a Nelson transplant to Flouvanah County is not a bad place to get lunch. It's just grass and grain. My favorite place is Flouvanah is grass and grain. Let's do the wrap up. Let's do the wrap up.

Thanks, guys. I appreciate the time..