The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Jerry Cox, Managing Director, Forerunner Foundation; How Will Upzoning Real Estate Impact CVille?

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Jerry Cox, Managing Director, Forerunner Foundation How Will Upzoning Real Estate Impact CVille? Why Is CVille New Zoning Ordinance Radical? Why Is New Zoning Not Leading To Affordability? Is Charlottesville Government Ignoring State Laws? Will $646K PPP Loan Doom Lake Monticello HOA? What Insiders Are Saying About Rose’s Closing Ralph Sampson’s Take On Next BBall Coach Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air Jerry Cox, Managing Director of The Forerunner Foundation, joined Jerry Miller live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Welcome to the I Love Seville Show, guys. My name is Jerry Miller. Good Wednesday afternoon to you. Thank you kindly for joining us. We are live in our building, the Macklin Building in downtown Charlottesville, a hop, skip, and a jump from the movers and shakers in this community. We are, I'd say, about, I don't know, 200 yards away from Charlottesville City Hall. We are 100 yards away from the Charlottesville

Police Department. We are a block away from the court system in Almar County in the city of Charlottesville, and we are right off the downtown mall. This is the epicenter of influence for a region we call Central Virginia that is 300,000 people strong. Today's show, I think, is going to be a very, very good one. We are going to talk all things Charlottesville, Alamaro County, and Central Virginia through a lens of the economy and the intersection of how local government is shaping our community, either for the better or for the worst. One of the storylines we will cover on today's program is upzoning, the new zoning ordinance. Does more density truly breed more affordability?

Or folks, are we opening a Pandora's box that has significant collateral damage right around the corner? All those topics and more on the Wednesday edition of the I Love Seville show, including Ralph Sampson's prediction or his pick of who the next Virginia basketball coach should be. Ralph was in the studio yesterday, and we're going to play some sound from our conversation with a man that certainly needs no introduction. Judah Wickhauer behind the camera, if you want to go to the studio shot, and then weave our guest Judah into the show. His name is Jerry Cox, and I think we got, in fact, I know we got a really, really smart guy on the line, a guy that's got ties to Charlottesville, lives in this community, and a guy that is concerned with what is coming up down the road. So without further ado, I'll welcome

Jerry Cox, the managing director of the Forerunner Foundation, to the program with already a handful of elected officials on the stream. Jerry, the show is yours. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, my friend, could you introduce yourself to the viewers and listeners, please? Well, I think the most important thing is I want to thank you for having me on the show. I could never say no to something that's called I Love Charlottesville, because I first came to Charlottesville as a law student back in the last century, fell in love with a young lady who was an undergrad. We got married up on top of Browns Mountain, and we live in the Lewis Mountain neighborhood. That's a bit of a disclaimer for what I have to say, and one of the reasons I'm so interested in what's happening.

But that's what I'm all about, is loving Charlottesville and continuing to do that because it is a very – traditionally has been a very lovable place. You and I have already a lot in common. University of Virginia guy and myself, who is proud to call Charlottesville his home to the point where he named one of his businesses and monikered one of his businesses about his affinity for the community. Like you, I'm also concerned with what's happening in this community.

And it's important to emphasize, just because we hold the community accountable does not mean that we love our home. It just means we want what's best for our home. I think Mr. Cox is going to embody that mindset. I've said on this program, the Lewis Mountain neighborhood, his neighborhood, is the neighborhood most prime for being in the eye of the development storm. We will get to that in a matter of moments. I'm going to start with an open-ended question. Upzoning, the new zoning ordinance, one year in right now. What do you make of all this brouhaha, Jerry? The most important thing to realize is that this is not just a Charlottesville issue. Charlottesville has been affected by this YIMBY, yes, in my backyard, movement.

And I would like to think that Virginia, because it's a big issue across the state, Virginia is where YIMBY goes to die. There are two things that people need to understand. First of all, you have to understand that this thing is almost a cult that has been moved from the West Coast, and they're trying to transplant it in Arlington and Alexandria and Charlottesville and continuing to try to transplant it in Arlington and Alexandria and Charlottesville

and continuing to try to spread it to other communities and the article of faith that this cult follows is that you have to get rid of single-family neighborhoods that somehow or other you're going to achieve some good things and you're not going to do a lot of harm in the process of doing that and it's just not true. I mean, the thing about Charlottesville is that people left and right all have at least a streak of common sense in them. And the YIMBY movement as applied to Charlottesville most certainly just doesn't pass that test. And I'll explain in a few minutes why it literally doesn't pass the smell test, but we'll get to that. But what I want to be able to cover, and I certainly want to answer your questions

or anybody else's questions about this, is, first of all, the incredible disconnect between affordable housing and what is being proposed. What's happened already, we have the example of Arlington, which is farther along on the curve, where a lot of really quite affordable, if you consider $800,000 an affordable house, and in Arlington it is, you have all these affordable houses, small houses being torn down and replaced with multi-million dollar, just massive townhouses and condos and so forth. So you're ending up with housing that costs a multiple new housing that would cost a multiple

of what the old housing cost. And that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. There's just not even common sense to think that. And in Arlington, you have a situation where people have opposed this and have taken it to court. And right now, you have a bunch of permits that were issued under this new zoning ordinance. You've got all those permits, and you get a lot of half-built houses. And even if all of them were complete by now, not a single one of them would be affordable in my book. And so I don't understand what the connection is supposed to be between getting rid of single-family neighborhoods and affordable housing. This is just a complete

disconnect. And the second thing is they're doing an awful lot of harm. I mean, the situation in Arlington has been harmful even to the developers to the extent that, you know, they have open roofs and rain coming in and so forth because they're under an injunction. And if they do go ahead, I mean, the judge backed off of his, up there, backed off from his injunction just a little bit and said, okay, fine, you can complete them, but you have to tell everybody who might buy your new house that they may have to tear it down. I mean, nobody's going to provide funding for that. So that, for all practical purposes, that is completely stuck, and it will be. The Court of Appeals in Virginia takes forever to issue decisions, so the appeal that the county has lodged is going to take a long time. And in the meantime, the county is using taxpayer dollars to fight their own taxpayers.

They have $700 an hour lawyers. That's almost as much as what I charge. They have $700 an hour lawyers who are pushing this. And for the $1.4 million that Arlington has spent on lawyers, think what they could have done in terms of housing for people who really have a desperate need. The D.C. area is one thing, and Alexandria is similar to that. And Charlottesville is different, but who knows how much Charlottesville has spent so far. There is a lawsuit in Charlottesville. The city has spent a certain amount of money, and they won't even disclose how much.

They won't tell their taxpayers how much of their money they're spending to oppose people who don't want to see this happen. And as you said earlier, the 303 Alderman Project really is, for the people who are behind this. This is their Normandy beach. You know, they are going to, you know, live and die on how that turns out. And it really is the best possible indication of the biggest problem. And that is that the city council did not require with this upzoning ordinance, they didn't require any sort of independent evaluation of whether infrastructure anywhere in the city can handle these massive multi-story brownstones that are being proposed for that lot on Alderman Road. And what you're going to see, or what you could see, we don't have any indication that you're not going to see it is sewage backing up in people's houses.

In Arlington, a good thing about the lawsuit up there is a city or county engineer just dared to ask that question. You know, what have we done to make sure we're not going to have sewage backing up in people's houses? And the guy was threatened. He was canceled. He was threatened. He was, you name it. And one of the things that his superiors were telling him is, oh my God, the public might see that you asked that

question. And so in discovery, it came out. And I think that had a lot to do with the judge in Arlington saying, now wait just a minute here, folks. You know, this is not, this is void. And so there are a lot of really pernicious effects that aren't being addressed, and the members of the city council, as best I can tell, they're in fight club. You know, the first rule of fight club is you don't ask questions. You don't ask a second rule. The first rule is you don't talk about fight club, and the second rule is you don't ask questions, and the city council voted for all this. It's not clear to me whether they just fell for a line of bull or whether they are somehow going to benefit for themselves, whether they're going to benefit by these changes, whether they figure they're not going to get reelected. They're going to get primaried because that's the only place to defeat anybody in the city of Charlottesville is at a primary.

I don't know what their problem is, but they're not willing to ask these questions. They are really allowing the staff to put their thumb on the scale and move 303 Alderman through. And I can tell you that that is not going to be built. You know, I have news for the developer. I have news for the city council. It's not going to happen because those lots were laid out in 1941. When this happened before Pearl Harbor, and let's take sewage, I keep harping on sewage because that's the issue where it really smells. Those sewer lines were set up for one house per lot. In the 40s and 50s, that meant one toilet flush per house, however many times a day. And the only time you had all of them flushing at once was when

there was a rerun not a rerun when there was a commercial uh on i love lucy you know everybody flushed their toilet you know when there was a commercial for i love lucy and now we're going to have uh supposedly what they're proposing is to have six uh huge townhouses that will have at least if it's going to be family housing i guess that means it's going to be at least three people. And you get a lot more flushes, and you also have showers. And in the 1940s and 50s, those homes did not have dishwashers. So now you're going to have all the sewage that comes out of dishwashers and this immensely increased population on a lot that's not even, I don't think it's more than a third of an acre. I'm sure their lawyers will correct me if I get any of the facts wrong about this. And I'll be

happy to reflect that. But still, you're looking at an enormous change without any study, without any consideration of the impact for the residents of that area. And aside from that, everything's great. Fantastic start to the interview. Jerry Cox, our guest of the Forerunner Foundation, he's the managing director. I'll offer a little color on what he's talking about. 303 Alderman Road purchased by a local builder development firm, Evergreen Home Builders. They paid $835,000 for 303 Alderman Road in June of last year. This was a single-family detached brick rancher. Now, the upside of this single-family detached brick rancher, and it was a home that needed a lot of renovating folks. But it was a corner lot. And it was a primo lot in a coveted, tony, and prestigious neighborhood that was in close proximity to the university.

I do not fault Evergreen for seeing opportunity. I'm a businessman who capitalizes on opportunity every day. They saw a new zoning ordinance that allowed this home to be torn down in six luxury brownstones to be built in its place. Brownstones that likely would have traded with an asking price well over a million dollars per brownstone. I have been told, and maybe this is some intel that you could provide, that there may be, because you're speaking with a lot of confidence when it comes to this project and this project not coming to fruition, Jerry. A lot of confidence. Absolutely.

A lot of confidence. Would you care to offer why you are speaking with such confidence, why this project will not happen? Are there any covenants or restrictions in place that could potentially keep them from materializing this project? There are, and the neighborhood has put them on notice that we will go to court to enforce that.

This will be independent of the issue about whether the zoning ordinance that they're relying on is ultimately declared to be void. I think it will be declared void. The judge in Arlington didn't agree with everything that the Arlington homeowners presented, but he did agree that the ordinance was void. And I think the same thing will happen in Alexandria, because in Northern Virginia, all seven circuit court judges, the regular judges in those circuits, recused themselves. They realized it would be unethical for them to rule. And so a retired Fairfax County judge heard the Arlington lawsuit and decided that the homeowners were right. And when the Alexandria judges recused themselves, the Supreme Court appointed that same judge. And the issues are really the same there, and the issues are the same here.

The only thing that we lack here is a judge who does not have a conflict of interest. So we got a little bit of breaking news there that's not in the Charlottesville ecosystem here. Covenants and restrictions on 303 Alderman Road that the neighborhood, Lewis Mountain, will utilize, will leverage to prevent the development of the six brownstones. If you've driven by that project, you will have noticed that nothing has happened there. The extent of what has happened is strictly some interior work, nothing exterior, and certainly not the raising or the tearing down of the home. So this neighborhood is flexing its muscles here. I'd like to highlight what you said about Judge Worrell,

and you could offer some more clarity here. The judge with this case lives in the city, and a lot of ways his home value will uptick in value if he basically greenlights what the city is trying to do. Furthermore, his partner, his wife, has been a housing activist, vocal housing activist, in her pursuit of housing affordability and enhanced density in the city. From a layman's perspective, you're the insider, I'm the layman, this reeks of conflict of interest. It absolutely does. And the fact that the judge didn't do what

the other seven judges in Northern Virginia did and recuse himself is really pretty shameful. He has an opportunity now to do the right thing, to step aside, and we'll see if the Supreme Court decides to appoint Judge Schell, who issued the order voiding the Arlington ordinance. We'll see how they feel about it, if Judge Schell is going to hear cases in all three jurisdictions. But that's really the way it should be, that we should have a judge whose home value is absolutely not going to change. I mean, who knows how anybody's home value will change with various rulings that Judge Worrell might make. But it's certainly a possibility that it could affect his, no matter where in the city he lives, because he lives in

the city. And that's exactly, apparently, the rationale. I mean, the seven judges in Northern Virginia considered it such a no-brainer. They didn't even really offer any explanation. They just said it would be unethical for them to rule and stepped aside. And that hasn't happened in Charlottesville. But it does have to happen in Charlottesville. It's the only way that we're going to have any confidence in the legal system. And it's been, that's a national issue. I mean, I don't want to get into all that. But I think, again, everybody of every political stride really has to wonder whether government really exists to protect people with a lot of money, like developers, or does government exist to protect

just plain old homeowners who are trying to get by day to day and just live their lives uh and um i think that's the the judge shell's ruling in arlington was a real uh confidence builder uh in the extent to which state statutes will act statutes will actually be enforced because you know, when you don't give any notice of what you're doing, or at least when you hide it and describe it in such technical terms that nobody has a clue what you're proposing to do, if people can get, if the government can get away with doing that, and if the government can take a project like 303 Alderman and try to hustle it through, then there's no confidence, you know, that you as a

voter really are going to, that your thoughts are going to be considered and that your economic interests are really something that the elected officials, you know, are really all about. But so far on this issue, and it's not just in Virginia. There are cases in North Carolina and various other places where exactly the same situation has happened. And you have to wonder, you know, is there some home builders association, some national organization that's behind this and trying to pull the wool over people's eyes and make them think that this effort really promotes affordable housing? I mean, the way to really get to affordable housing, and we've just really started doing some pretty serious research on this, the way to do it is not blanket upzoning. It's finding places in the city where you already have the infrastructure,

places that have been built more recently that are on bus lines, that, you know, where you're not competing with 150-year-old trees as you are in Lewis Mountain, you're not tearing with 150-year-old trees as you are in Lewis Mountain, you're not tearing down 150-year-old trees and destroying the canopy of the neighborhood. There are places in the city where that can happen, newer places that are in the city, and those things can be done in ways that they'd be better off spending the $2 million Charlottesville is likely to spend fighting us, that $2 million would go a long way, you know, for subsidizing housing or whatever. I mean, that's just a way to start. But the number one thing that has to happen to get to what the

YIMBY movement is about, affordable housing, is to forget this business of trying to cram this universal across the board upzoning down people's throats. Jerry Cox, our guest, guys. I had an interaction with Lloyd Snook, and Judah, get close to, let's put Mr. Cox on a one-shot here shortly. I had an interaction with Counselor Lloyd Snook on Facebook, and he said they were very cautious. In fact, I'll read it verbatim, what he said to me.

We, the city of Charlottesville, were very conscious of the Arlington litigation as we were passing what we did. End quote. Where's the misstep? Was the wool pulled on council's eyes by staff? Did council try to bamboozle taxpayers in the city? Clearly somebody was misinformed here. Where was the communication, you know, connection not consistent or not efficient enough in this process? And one really obvious point is that the person who had responsibility for implementing the Arlington, the new zoning ordinance in Arlington, left the place in a complete shambles. You know, it's just it's a complete mess for developers and for everybody else. And so her reward for doing that was Charlottesville hired her. She came here. To do the same thing.

She's right around the corner from you. Her reward for doing that was Charlottesville hired her to do the same thing. She's right around the corner from you. That was a really bad pick. If there was really any interest in making this happen in a good and effective way. By choosing 303 Alderman as the beachhead, all they've done is give a poster child. It's the poster child for the opposition. It's like, we'll just go right ahead and do whatever the hell we want, and if the neighborhood doesn't like it, they can be damned. And we can communicate with our city council members.

Lloyd Snook, I have to give some credit, he has asked a lot of good questions of the other council members. He's asked good questions of staff. He's not getting honest answers. And we'll see whether that will lead to him actually proposing to do anything, to change anything, or whether just the additional scrutiny on this Normandy landing, whether people really want to try that and see what happens, because it is not going to turn out well for affordable housing. And again, that's really what we're all about, is trying to get more affordable housing in Charlottesville. You know, I lived in Northern Virginia, lived in Great Falls, Virginia for 20 years, raised our children there.

And particularly in Great Falls, affordable housing would be considered like about 1.8 million would be considered affordable housing in Great Falls. That's not good. If that's the only choice that middle-income people and low-income people have is to live out in Manassas or something and try to commute in, that's not good policy in any way, shape, or form. That policy of creating affordable housing is exactly what all of us want. I mean, nobody is, you know, at the risk of being called a Karen, and I don't think I look anything like a Karen. This is about doing the right thing. This is about getting the policy objective accomplished. Clearly a smart guy, our guest here. Jerry Cox, kind enough to join us. Kelly Brown is who the city of Charlottesville hired from Arlington.

And she is the Director of Neighborhood Development Services. And she previously worked in Arlington, whereas Jerry said in some cases or some vantage points has left Arlington in disarray and some would say in shambles zoning-wise. Let's talk about the radical nature of what's happening in Charlottesville. I've caught significant resistance on this program because I, just like you, want what's best for Charlottesville. And I, just like you, want to see my contemporaries that are small business owners have staff in Charlottesville that they can hire, staff that is willing to take a job where they only have to commute five minutes to work as opposed to living in Buckingham County and driving 50 minutes to a job where they're working potentially for $15 an hour, and then they say, they weigh the scales of justice. How can I work this frontline job at $15 an hour when I'm having to commute two hours round trip? And then the small business owner basically has a depleted staff sample size, and then the staff that they're able to hire has them by the you-know-what and says, we want 2x

what market value is, and they can't sustain their livelihoods or their business models. That's just one example of what's happening literally in our home, guys, in Charlottesville. So can you put in perspective the radical nature of what's happening in a 10.2-square-mile city we call Charlottesville, Virginia? Well, I think what's really obvious is that everybody wants affordable housing. Obviously, the situation you're describing is not sustainable. It's not good economics. It's not good social policy. There's nothing good about that at all.

When I came to Charlottesville, literally everything I owned in the world was in the back of my 1969 Buick Skylark. And I was able to find student housing, which I'm sure nowadays would cost some incredible multiple of what I paid as a student. It's about $1,000 a door here in Charlottesville for student housing. Ah, there you go. But the thing is, if we really do agree, if everybody involved agrees that we want affordable housing, then somebody needs to explain to me how in Lewis Mountain, how in the world does building $1.3 million townhouses, you know, turning this little lot into $8 million worth of real estate, how on earth does that help affordable housing? That's why I say this is the poster child. If they, you know, had proposed, you know, even a duplex or something like that in that location, we'd probably be looking at certainly over a million for each of the houses in the duplex. But there is one thing that's different about that house that you were describing, and that is it has a huge sign on the front, which also violates the covenants.

It has a huge sign on the front of the house that says, coming in 2025, six luxury townhouses starting at $1.3 million. I mean, that's the disconnect I was talking about, is you just cannot tell me that that helps affordable housing. And if that's the first thing you want to do, that's the number one priority for the city to ram that through, that tells you everything about how much attention they're paying to the economics of this, how much attention they're paying to the practical implications, particularly things like sewage and so forth. I mean, you just, you can't tell me that people in 1941,

when they were selling these lots with a very definite restriction of one house per lot, and when they were building the sewerage and the utilities to accommodate that in the neighborhood, that they anticipated that kind of development. Or even for that matter, you know, to accommodate that in the neighborhood, that they anticipated that kind of development, or even for that matter, you know, turning other houses in that neighborhood into fourplexes, essentially, because if you keep your, under the new zoning ordinance, another radical thing is that if you don't tear down the house that's there, you can add three more. And so that's also going to put a strain on utilities and sewerage and so forth. And I don't think, I would hope that the elected members of the council are thinking about their constituents coming to them in a year

or two or three and talking about how their house has been destroyed because sewage is constantly backing up. I mean, in Lewis Mountain, there are parts of the community where there are curbs that have been missing for the entire 10 years that I've lived there. If they can't handle replacing a curb, don't tell me that they're all set to go to upgrade the sewage or any of the other utilities. Jerry Cox, our guest, we'll spend a handful of minutes more with Jerry. Interesting article today in the Seville Weekly written by Sean Tubbs, who's a community watchdog. He quotes David Mitchell,

who's the construction and development manager for Great Eastern Management Company. Great Eastern Management Company owns a number of the shopping centers locally, including the Pantop Shopping Center. Mr. Mitchell, in this article by Sean Tubbs, talks about the Roses Shopping Center, the Roses storefront that recently,

or is in the process of closing. And folks have asked, journalists have asked, could that potentially become housing? And they said, no, we're going to continue to try to pursue a retail tenant for Roses. And then he offers this on the record quote, the recently passed affordable housing regulations in Charlottesville for new residential structures will make residential development extremely difficult, if not financially impossible to do. Here is a guy

that's in the business of development saying what the playbook that we have in charlesville to build homes to build housing literally will not pencil out financially with what we do i i've said this so many times it seems to me that the the community elected officials city hall whoever's calling the shots here cannot get out of its own way They say they want housing affordability, and then they create so much red tape, or they don't follow the process, a Dillon rule state, that the housing affordability has no chance of materializing. It just can't get out of your own way. It's run not as a business owner would run. I'll throw this to Jerry Cox. What do you see? We're a year in now, right? A year in with the new zoning ordinance. What do you see year two looking like? Is the first step the navigation of this lawsuit against the NCO? Can anything happen here?

Where do you see it going? I think that a year from now, that's what you asked me? Yes. A year from now, everything is still going to be up in the air because it's unlikely that the Court of Appeals, based on their track record, will have decided the Arlington case. And no matter which side the three-judge panel on the Court of Appeals, which side they go with, one side or the other is going to take it to the state Supreme Court. That'll add another year of litigation. So you're looking at at least two, maybe four years of litigation in Arlington. Alexandria, especially with the same judge, who can actually read a statute and tell whether people complied with it or not, you know, that

judge essentially has said that if the statute says you have to give reasonable consideration, then your answer can't be, we gave it no consideration, and it was reasonable for us to give it no consideration. I mean, that's just not going to fly. And Charlottesville will end up in that same mix. And then as far as 303 Alderman is concerned, the enforcement of the covenants, you know, which is a private issue, and the city is very quick to throw up their hands and say oh no that's not we have nothing to do with that that's between the uh plaintiffs and the defendants uh in that case between the homeowners who bought their homes with the understanding since 1941 bought their

homes with the understanding that was going to be single family, where nobody in the neighborhood has ever tried, even dreamed of doing anything other than that, and they think they're going to change that with this project. And so that'll be on a slightly delayed track, but I think sooner or later they will all catch up, and sooner or later the Supreme Court will have to decide. And then, after that's happened, I'd be in a better position to answer your question. How has Evergreen responded to the neighborhood's, you know, presentation of the covenants and restrictions for 303 Alderman Road?

Well, they've had two different lawyers respond. We have sent notice to them, and two different lawyers have responded, and both of them seem to think that the best way to convince us to back off is to threaten us. And so we've had, you know, two threats, not physical threats, but threats that they will sue us. And, you know, I can tell you, it's not going over well. That neighborhood consists of quite a number of people, very diverse culturally and every other way. Very diverse people, some of whom go back in Charlottesville. Talk about loving Charlottesville. I have a couple in my neighborhood. His father was a law professor going back in the 1930s.

He remembers when Alderman Road ended. I mean, they built Alderman Road basically as a pipe stem off of 250 originally. He remembers when it ended right across from his front yards. You get a lot of people there who feel like they're invested, and after multiple generations in some cases, after having invested quite a lot of effort and loving, you know, the environment that you find in a single family neighborhood, and no, there's nothing wrong with that. That's not bad for somebody to want to have a place where they can raise kids, you know, where they can, you know, just enjoy that life. There's nothing wrong with that. And so the response that we have gotten essentially has been threats. And, you know, I've been practicing for 46 years and my answer to that has been, bring it on.

Who could the builder, who could the developer actually sue? Would the developer sue the neighborhood association that they're trying to build six brownstones within? Wouldn't they be suing themselves? I have to let them answer that question because I don't see any basis. I think they're just going to have to count on whatever judge would decide the issue at the circuit court level. They would have to make their best argument in the same way that we will make ours. And then they will have to wait because I'm sure, again, whichever side loses will appeal it to the Court of Appeals. And as I said, that's a two to three year proposition getting through the appeals process. So they're going to have to make their decision, first of all, whether they really need to take this particular beach. I mean, you know, if this is their Omaha beach,

then maybe they need to go a little bit farther down someplace else and let other people who are affected by that. But the key thing, and we have produced a video issue brief to let people in the community and across Virginia, and really across the country, know what can you expect? What's going to happen to you if they storm this beach? You know, they're going to be literally in your backyard telling you what you will and will not have in your backyard or next door to you or whatever. They're going to be there, and they're going to be there soon.

And the sooner this goes through, the sooner this happens, the sooner that's going to happen to other people. And that's one of the reasons why we are looking at this not strictly as a Charlottesville issue. This is, again, this is their Normandy Beach for the whole Commonwealth of Virginia. And I think people are paying attention just based on the response that we have gotten from people who have seen and shared the video issue brief. I'll close with this, offer you a platform to go in any direction that we have not covered. You have two electeds at the city of Charlottesville,

two in Almaro County, and one in the surrounding counties watching you now. Jerry Cox, our guest for Rudder Foundation. Any I's that need to be dotted, T's crossed, and any item in the notebook we have not covered before we close. No, I would simply implore those public servants to realize that they're supposed to be public servants. That doesn't mean doing the bidding of people who stand to make a lot of money selling properties to people who have a lot of money. They owe a debt to people at lower and middle income people, like the people that you described earlier, who also want to be able to enjoy Charlottesville. And they also, in order to do that, they need employment. But they need to live someplace that's close to where their employment is. And if there is any serious thought, if any of these public officials have any serious thought about how to make that happen, they need to consider alternatives to what the city of Charlottesville did.

They need to go back to the drawing board and come up with something that is not going to get tied up in court for the next three years, but will actually happen. And they need to stop spending money on $700, taxpayer money on $700 an hour lawyers to fight us. Can we stay in contact? I appreciate the perspective. I think you made the show better. And certainly we're very informative in the community. I would love to do an interview in the near future. Well, you're kind to say that. I expect I'll be speaking a lot on these issues. And one of the things I've done already is to challenge the developer, and I would challenge any of these elected officials that you've got watching the show, to a debate. hear both sides because as I often find when I'm going after federal bureaucrats and so forth you know you go and you talk to the top person and they defer to the staff and say oh well there's two sides to the story and I'm like okay I'm prepared to present my side why don't you have them come and present their side you the decision maker should hear that in real time it shouldn't

be me going on and then you're having somebody else put out a press release or something that says Cox is fill in the blank. I'm sure my taxes are going to quadruple overnight because of this. But standing on principle, and if they're willing to stand on principle, they should be able to present that to the public in a public forum. And I would invite Michael Payne and or Lloyd Snook to come on the I Love CVO show and have a friendly debate. And I'm happy to moderate it with Jerry Cox. We've had debates with counselors on this platform in the past. I'm happy to host another one. I thank you, Jerry, for your time. And we will stay in touch, my friend. You are doing a great public service. The thanks really all go to you. Thank you, Jerry. You have a good day. Thank you. You too. Jerry Cox, guys, Forerunner Foundation.

A lot of interesting tidbits came up in that show. I've highlighted on this program, and it was not my news to put out there. And I just asked the question on this program, why has 303 Alderman Road, why has nothing materialized there? Now we know. Now we know. There's covenants and restrictions and the neighborhood is calling 303 Alderman Road, as Jerry put it, their Normandy Beach. And they're willing to go balls to the wall to to enforce those covenants and restrictions um and and we'll i'm very curious to see how this plays out and and my commentary and my analysis on this program has nothing to do with with evergreen i think evergreen does fantastic work fantastic work evergreen i hope you truly understand that. But you just happen to be the first to market with this new zoning ordinance in a very visible way in a neighborhood that has a lot of clout and influence and wealth. That's opposed to frankly the new zoning ordinance.

And oftentimes when you're first to market, first to market gets slaughtered. First to market faces the arrows and the headwinds. MySpace Friendster, first to market. Next to market, Facebook. There's so many examples of this and they were first to market and they are feeling the wrath of a affluent and wealthy community and neighborhood on a project that's extremely visible in large part because of this program, large part because of this show.

And it's going to basically come down to this with 303 Alderman Road. Is this the hill that a company wants to risk its reputation on? Are you going to go balls to the wall with an $835,000 purchase of a brick rancher that you're trying to convert into six brownstones and risk alienating or upsetting wealthy, affluent, old guard Charlottesville? Or are you finally going to make a business decision, a business decision and say,

we are not going to be first to market and pursue this path anymore. We're going to take 303 Altman Road. We're going to put the lipstick on the pig. We're going to make it look good. We're going to do the stainless. We might expand it, and then we're going to try to sell it for $1.2 million, $1.3 million, $1.4 million, $1.5 million, $1.6 million. Lewis Mountain can command north of $2 million in some cases, and then we're going to try to sell it for $1.2 million, $1.3 million, $1.4 million, $1.5 million, $1.6 million. Lewis Mountain can command north of $2 million in some cases.

And then we're going to get the hell out of here and let somebody else fight on Normandy Beach. Okay? Because I will bet you that's going to be what happens here. You make a business decision. The best business people are people that make business decisions without emotion. And from my standpoint, an emotional decision would be going balls to the wall against some of the most influential and wealthy people in a community. And that's what Lewis Mountain is all about. Thank Jerry Cox for being on the program. Georgia Gilmer says,

Jerry Cox for counsel. I want to give some props to Charlottesville Sanitary Supply for being on the show, Judah. 60 consecutive years of business, Charlottesville Sanitary Supply, John Vermillion, the best sideburns, and Central Virginia, John Vermillion, and Andrew Vermillion, online at charlottesvillesanitarysupply.com. We've got a still cover on the program. Owen Brenner is, you know, I'm reading the comments. Owen Brenner on I Love Seville is poking, doing some poking at the Forerunner Foundation and their online and digital presence. And then Janice Boyce-Trevillian responds and says, check him out, Owen, on LinkedIn. Check out his name and what he does. And others have said that Mr. Cox is a real deal attorney that is in front of the federal courts, federal cert courts all the time. And he is a lawyer that is operating at a very high level. So offering some clarity over that. Logan Wells-Klala, welcome to the

broadcast. And I encourage the counselors watching the show to come on the program. I'm happy to host a friendly, moderated debate where everyone would have equal opportunity to voice their opinion on what's going on. Will that happen? Who knows? I'm sure counsel with an active lawsuit would be hesitant to do this. Other topics I need to get to on a fine and fair Wednesday in downtown Charlottesville. The Lake Monticello, if you want to put this lower third on screen, the Lake Monticello Homeowners Association is in the news right now. And the Lake Monticello HOA is the largest HOA in central Virginia. One of the largest in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Roughly 4,300 homes in Lake Monticello in Fluvanna County, a gated community.

This HOA has its own police, its own fire and rescue, has a golf course, has beaches tied to the lake, has a club, a lot of infrastructure that it's paying for. And this HOA during COVID applied for a Paycheck Protection Program loan in April of 2020. That loan was utilized to avoid furloughing staff. It's important to emphasize this. The HOA dues that were coming in during COVID on the rooftops, those were still being paid. Those were still being paid. But the revenue that was missing during COVID, on the rooftops, those were still being paid. Those were still being paid. But the revenue that was missing during COVID was the revenue tied with the other activities that were

being provided in the neighborhood that were not generating revenue. You still had to upkeep the golf course. You still had to upkeep the club. You still had to upkeep the gym. You still had to upkeep all these other things, but people weren't utilizing it. So they got, ladies and gentlemen, a loan to the tune of $646,843. Now a notice has been sent from the Department of Justice to the Lake Monticello HOA that they are not eligible for loan forgiveness and they asked the HOA to resolve the issue before litigation started. And now the board of directors at the Lake Monticello Homeowners Association in their January meeting let homeowners know that a notification was unexpected since both the

loan and forgiveness applications have been approved by the SBA. The Lake Monticello Owners Association applied for the PPP loan of $646,843 in April of 2020 to avoid furloughing staff, and the loan was approved shortly thereafter. The SBA granted forgiveness around May of 2021. Now the HOA is working to figure this out. Clearly a big chunk of money. And that's what legacy media, old school media, traditional media is trying to utilize the $646,000 loan essentially as clickbait. I would push back on the $646,000 loan as being this big piece of drama or putting the neighborhood in peril. If you just do basic arithmetic

and you take $646,843, the size of the loan, and you divide it by 4,300, the rooftops in the community, you're looking at a special assessment of $150 per house. So when you read, I encourage you to look beyond headlines. When you read NBC 29, or you read some of the clickbait on these junior varsity traditional media platforms that say neighborhood might be in peril, or they may be on the hook for this federal loan, just take out a calculator and ask yourself $646,000 divided by 4,300 homes. That's the special assessment. Oh, no, it's $150. So even if they're on the hook for paying back this loan, they send a notice to their

homeowners, you owe us $150 extra in your dues. Please pay that. So we're not on in the crossfire of the federal government, the Department of Justice. Okay. It's just common sense here. Like, I asked this question. There was a massive sell-off on Monday, right? Of the top holding in my portfolio, NVIDIA. The chip maker, the semiconductor. NVIDIA, 17%. 17%, $600 billion of market cap was wiped from NVIDIA in one day. The most market cap wiped from a company in history, what happened to NVIDIA on Monday.

Their stock cratered 17% in a trading day. What I did, and what a lot of unemotional traders should have done, may have done, could have done, and I'm not offering trading advice, I'm just letting you know what I did and what a lot of unemotional traders should have done, may have done, could have done, and I'm not offering trading advice. I'm just letting you know what I did, was I doubled down on this position knowing I got a 17% discount. And then I asked the question, why is NVIDIA cratering? Oh, because this Chinese startup DeepSeek is trying to eat NVIDIA's lunch, AMD's lunch, all these other chip makers' lunch. And then I said, what is China's Deep Seek, some startup doing here? They said with $5 million, we are going to eat the lunch of artificial intelligence in America and worldwide. And I said, you're going to tell me that the Chinese, who currently

we don't trust China and its government to the point where TikTok, ladies and gentlemen, is on the cusp of being banned in America. TikTok is in the crossfire of America because we don't trust the Chinese government and China controls TikTok. Are we going to

allow China and DeepSeek and this artificial intelligence startup to get even deeper in Americans' lives? Hell no, we're not. We're not allowing them in a social media company. We're going to allow them with powerful artificial intelligence modeling? Of course not. Then I asked myself this question. How the hell is DeepSeek with $5 million going to do the exact same thing that chip makers and AI companies have done for $280 billion projected this year? I'll put those numbers in perspective. DeepSeek says it spent $5 million doing what American companies are projecting that they're going to do for $280 billion with a B dollars. Does that make sense to you? Or is this China effing with the United States in yet another way? Make it make sense.

Look beyond the headlines. I encourage you to look beyond the headlines. Beyond the $646,000 owed with the Lake Monticello Homeowners Association. Oh, woe is me. This is going to cause home values to drop at Lake Monticello. No, it's not. Worst case scenario, an extra $150 from the homeowners. China saying they used $5 million

to figure out artificial intelligence destroyed $1 trillion of value in the U.S. stock market in one day. That's China effing with us. Effing with us. Smart people look beyond that. A couple of other headlines on a Wednesday. I found this extremely intriguing.

If you put the Roses headline on screen, please. This was in Sean Tubbs' article in the Seville Weekly. He quoted Sean Tubbs, essentially the director of, I mean, David Mitchell is the construction and development manager for Great Eastern Management Company. They own the Pantop Shopping Center. Great Eastern Management Company is also the owner of Seminole Square Shopping Center. You're talking about Great Eastern Management Company, one of the heaviest of hitters in this community. And they were talking about the Roses space,

Roses and Dollar Tree, a space that dates back to 1986, as Sean reports. And Sean asked the Director of Construction and Development for Great Eastern Management, could this potentially become residential real estate, which is a push that Neil Williamson is trying to do in the Free Enterprise Forum. He's trying to get commercial real estate in the 29 quarter and the commercial quarters to be utilized as residential real estate. Big push from the president of the Free Enterprise Forum.

Love the guy, Neil Williamson. And this quote from David Mitchell in Sean's story, good Lord, should be a kick in the nuts to the Gilligan gang, livable Charlottesville and the Gilligan gang. Here's the quote he gave. The recently passed affordable housing regulations in Charlottesville for new residential structures will make residential extremely difficult, if not financially impossible to build. Is that not a kick in the nuts to the Gilligan gang right there? The director of construction and development for Great Eastern Management Company,

a company that owns shopping centers, plural, millions of square feet in Charlottesville and Almar County, millions of square feet, said what you guys have done, affordable housing requirement-wise, makes development of affordable housing or basically any residential development at all financially impossible.

Financially impossible. This is what happens when you allow unsophisticated activists to influence elected officials who are stretched thin, working for peanuts, are well past their pay grade. You have a small group of people in Charlottesville, activists, organized and strategized and vocalized on social media,

influencing, if not bullying, low-paid elected officials that are susceptible to bullying tactics. And today we have affordable housing requirements that are so restrictive that people in the industry, Jeff Levine, David Mitchell, are straight up saying, we cannot do this. It does not pencil out how you have the rules right now. And that is a direct result of the Gilligan gang. Shooting you effing straight on the program today.

We close in with Ralph. Is that what we're closing with? You got the sound ready to go for the greatest basketball player in Virginia history? Ralph Sampson joined us on the Jerry and Jerry Show, an hour discussion with Hootie Ratcliffe and I, which you can find wherever you get your podcasting content.

I asked Ralph Sampson, Hootie and I asked Ralph Sampson, who should be the next, who do you think? My exact words were, who do you think will be the next head basketball coach at the University of Virginia? His comment, his answer shocked me. John Blair, before we get to the audio, says, you have been on fire lately. This interview and the Verve interview were two of the most informative interviews on local housing that I've seen in years. Thank you, John Blair. This is who Ralph Sampson, the 7'4", greatest basketball player in Virginia history, a Hall of Famer, former NBA player, said should be the next head coach, and he predicts will be the next head coach of Virginia basketball. Judah Wickauer will close on this so we can play Ralph and then go to the exit of the show. Thank you kindly for joining us. Listen to what Ralph had to say.

Three, two, one. Ralph, Ralph, we'll throw it to you first. Who do you think should be the new coach for next season? Okay, I'll caveat it with mine. Should there be a new coach for next season? Well, you know, I'll be realistic i mean i love sanchez and willford the guy i think they should get a shot at it um you know because they were thrown under the bus um will they get a shot at it i don't know but my my picks would be

uh if i if they were still coaching, it's either Laranega or Odom because they know the history of U of A, but that's not going to happen. They retired. I talked to Coach Laranega. They retired from Miami. Same thing. Just gets tired of the shifting coaches, and they are pure coaches.

And you're talking Dave Odom here. Dave Odom. Okay. Now, I'm coming back to that Odom, but Dave Odom, Coach Odom, my coach, and Dave Odom. But the two top ones that I would say is, number two,

Ryan Odom. He knows UVA. He was born and raised here. He's a great coach at VCU. I talked to Coach Odom about this not too long ago. I said, you know, man, he'd be interested in UVA. I mean, maybe, maybe not. I don't know, but he's doing a great job at VCU. And then he beat Tony and won a 16 game.

So, you know, I gave him some kudos for that. But I think the cool here is Rick Carlisle. Rick's got a house here in Charlottesville now. Rick's daughter's going to UVA now. And I don't know if Rick started the NBA, but I think with the culture having the NBA coach that can coach NBA players may attract some players to come to play for UVA because he's there just like Belichick at North Carolina that may happen but do you have the NIL money to compete with the big boys to get those type of players?

I don't know, but Rick would be my favorite. I hear there's a secret player and staff committee that's trying to pick coaches. I'm not on that committee, so I can say what I want. Former players? From what I know, I have no clue. We've heard similar rumblings. I've heard that, but like I said, I don't know who's on that, and I'm not privy to all that stuff, which is fine.

But I think Rick Carlisle would do a hell of a job, and I think he would fit the status quo in Charlottesville because he may be connected to all the big money guys in Charlottesville that may do some more NIL because he's here.