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

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

Jesse Rutherford, Nelson County Board of Supervisors, and Neil Williamson, President of Free Enterprise Forum, joined Keith Smith & Jerry Miller live 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 El Mariachi Mexican Bar & Grill, Fincham & Associates, Inc., Free Enterprise Forum, Intrastate Service Co, Mejicali, Tailored Closet, Premier Garage, Budget Blinds and YES Realty Partners.

Good Friday morning, guys. My name is Jerry Miller and thank you kindly for joining us on Real Talk with Keith Smith. It's an absolute pleasure to connect with you guys through the Isle of Seville Network on a show that is presented by Yes, Realty Partners. Yes, Relty Partners is a brokerage co-owned by Keith and Yonah Smith. They have proudly served our community for almost 40 years. Since 1987, Keith and Yonah Smith, have been working in real estate. My family, the Millers, have parted. personally done multiple transactions with Keith and Yona Smith as our representation. And I'll tell you what, we have been and continue to be super pleased with them. Their guidance, their counseling, and their consultation, Keith and Yona Smith and yes, Relative partners, trustworthy and communicative. Today's program is going to be fun. Neil Williamson is here. Jesse Rutherford is here.

If there's people that you want to belly up to a bar, whether it's the barrel house in Nelson County, whether it's wild, man Dan in green? No, he's in Nelson. What is the watering hole in green? There are several. There's actually Octonia Stone just opened up a new tap room off of 231. Okay, okay. If you want to belly up to one of those, it would be with Neil and Jesse and Keith by your side. I sincerely

mean that. It's fun. And I think you, the viewer and listener, we'll see that dynamic firsthand. Jude is behind the camera. He's the Elmer's glue of this team. We don't get to Victory Lane without Judah Wickauer. I sincerely mean that. I don't think we get off to start. We don't get off. Yeah, you're right. Out of the gates, Keith, you're right.

Studio camera, then four shot as we woke up. Jesse Rutherford, Neil Williamson, and Sally Jesse Raphael to the program this Friday morning. Keith Smith, good to see you, my friend. I love you. I kid because I care. I don't know who he is. I kid because I care. I think we should first.

Can somebody explain who that person is would be very helpful. Neil Williams that could start. Sally Jesse Raphael. I think he's Googling. I think there's a certain I think this is specifically set up this way that there's a certain age

group on one corner. Are you officially a boomer? No, no, I'm not. You're a Gen X? Sally Jesse Raphael was a talk show host that came out of the Chicagoland area. 100% in the late 70s, early 80s, and was rather

big on the Metro Media, which was the, that was actually a somewhat below first tier network before we had all of these networks including the I Love Seville Network. Is there any other? I love Cibald's networks

own. I hope there is a man enough for it. All things right here. There better not be. I love Diels so much. Sally Jesse Raffiaeo was quite popular at one time and was nationally syndicated. at one time.

I grew up watching Sally, Jesse, Rafael. Not because I wanted to, by the way, but because it was constantly on because of where I was raised. Sure, at that point, there was two channels on the television. There was more than that. You guys had television? Yeah, Jesse. We're in Nelson County, man.

It was tough to get a satellite set up for you in between mountains. So the second thing that everybody needs to know, other than I broke my both pair of eyeglasses, so these are my backup. Thank you for the reference. I actually like them. Thank you. I sincerely mean.

I think it's beautiful. Well, you are so far the only one. Everybody in my family thinks they're the dumbest thing ever. But anyway, the second thing is both my hearing aids are in the VA shop. So I can't hear a dawn word anybody saying. So I'm reading lips. So as I said in the warm up, as I said in the warm up, I have fun fellows at my expense.

It will be done. Anyway, is anybody speaking? No, okay. I think what we need to do is we'll do like you got it. We're going to raise our hand. I do appreciate the hearing impaired sticker there, so, you know, the hearing impaired sticker on the back of your computer, so it's a good reminder of your situation.

Does he really? Yeah, on his backpack. Attack. I got one on my backpack, and I've got one on the back of my jersey when I do cycling, so when people pass me. because I can't hear them. And if you all of a sudden got somebody zipping past you, you make a left and

crash at 20 miles an hour, 25 miles an hour. You break your eyeglasses. Ray Cadell, to Neil Williamson's point, Metro Media founder and chairman was John Clugie, by the way. Ray Cudy Lottes in the feed. Local, John Clugie.

That's right. And he says a long time ago, I'm the guy that put Twin Lakes together as well. Ray Cadell. Ray did a number of projects in Greene County. Yeah, that's right. Ray Cadill, local icon. Logan, icon, and a national rock star, but he plays jazz. Jazz star.

Judah, I sent you, excuse me, I sent you an email. I forgot to send you to two slides from this morning. So there's a slide one and two that is sitting in your email. So my apologies for getting that to you late. So, you know, today is going to be fun. you know as Jerry teed it up we've got the good old Jesse Rutherford from Nelson County and whatever we're going to talk about that's problematic it's his fault probably more than likely but he Nelson County has fiber we do have the best internet in the best internet out there

I doubt about it best beverages best view shed I mean really the quality of life in Nelson Isaiah Knight's the best government-owned land let's have some government-owned land with really high ambitions now if we can just get the Lovington Street Scape project going. Hey, that is underway and proud to announce that... I was trying to introduce you, Neil, but just quite didn't go. USDA has given us more money

for our sewer. Can I do that now? Am I allowed? Oh, sorry, I raise my hand. Sorry. I raised my hand. You guys are so lucky this is a family-friendly show. We love you. We love you. Because what I'm thinking about is not very friendly,

family-friendly friends. So we have our dear friend, Neil Williamson, from the free enterprise forum sitting to my right. And I'll say this publicly and out there. If it wasn't for you showing up for every meeting, I'm not so sure this community would have an in-depth understanding of what's happening in all jurisdictions. So I know how many years you've been doing it?

23 years. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a lot. Woody Fincham's calling him Professor Williamson, the myth and the legend. Wow. Thanks, Woody.

Legend. Well, we can go down that road if you want. So anyway, so I just, I really didn't have too much covered today. I really want to talk a little bit about new construction in Green and Nelson County. But are you good to go? Okay, good. So what I wanted to do is I just wanted to kind of do a quick kickoff on the market and then see where the conversation kind of goes from there.

Those who have been watching the show for a while. We have a market monitor in our Paragon and an MLS. I've been literally every Friday morning for eight and a half years take a picture of it. It's usually a seven-day snapshot. I can set it to whatever I want. I just did it this time looking at the 28 days going back. This 28 days from today going backwards and the same 28-day scenario in 2025. And Jerry and I've been talking about this for a while,

and you know you're in the business right you're in the business from a periphery perspective you're you're in the trenches on it um it though prices are a little off the tempo is up year over year and it's just you know just trying to figure out how that correlates between what's going on in the market what's happening in green and what's happening and nelson i just would like to kick off the conversation there and if judah has an opportunity great thank you so slide number one, it's just a side-by-side. And when I talk about tempo, I'm talking about new listings that have come on in that time period, both 25 versus 26.

So we're up actually 12% in new listings. We're also up about 13% in pending. So what that's telling us is we're coming in, we're going off. We're coming in, we're going off. I really expected that number, 2026 number, to be less than 2025. I agree. But it didn't. Close sales.

are up about 10%. Price changes are up 30%, I think we can take a dive into that on why, a little bit later. And back on the market, it's got a little bit of a drop on 14% and expired listings are around 4% down. But we've been talking for the last couple weeks about location, features, condition, and price, and it used to always be location and price. Now you've got prices now after features and conditions. So, Jesse, you're in the business. You're an elected official, vice chair. What do you think? Yeah, you know, I think from a housing standpoint, it's been really interesting, at least seeing in the Nelson County market what's been moving and what the custom home builders are building. So I think

one thing that is definitely still a reflection is specific high-end product with high features in it is still, we're seeing that move. When we get ready to talk about, the new construction market in New York County. That's only what's in the MLS. Sure, you're right. New customs generally don't end up there. No, they do not. No, but I was just saying just from an appetite.

No, no, no. I was just saying, the new construction, I think I equal all of these, all four. Well, we'll let. Well, tell what that means. The units that have sold that are new construction in Nelson County were all built by Jesse Rutherford. At least that shopping car. That showed up in the airport. Yeah, show up on car.

So if you don't mind bouncing slide two on, what he's referring to is what I did as a side-by-side analysis between Green and Nelson County. And there's three that sold year-to-date, and they are all yours. This would all probably be mine, yeah. That wasn't staged. No. Intentionally, it just happened to be that way. Basically, Jesse's got his own little. But I think it paints the picture that it is your fault.

It is, yes, correct. that that category right there up 50%. I did that. That's one unit. That's one unit is up 50%. percentage wise, it's huge. Hey, listen, let me tell you guys. It's a lot like all the stoplights are out in Nelson

County. So there's one. But to your point on the pending and active, I mean, we've definitely seen a little bit of a, we've definitely seen some level of a dip. You know, and I've talked to Neil about this briefly about what that might mean from a global scale of like what we're seeing as

a region, but, you know, I think kind of some of the activity in Green has some play for that median number and less, if that makes sense, who the buyers are. Well, I know this is, you don't do this every day. This is not your sales world, but you're in it every day. So do you think that the spike, because we're up quite a bit in Green County, up roughly 18% in units, do you think that's a spike? Do you think that's a spike? impacting the overall market? Absolutely. And why? And I think the reason for that is that not only in the sales, but other markets and people moving here, there is a new player in town, which is the lease market, build to lease. If you look at Green Terrace, all of those products, as you're headed

north on 29, they're on your right as you cross over into the Green County line, are built to lease. Now, they're all on independent parcels, so they could be simple sales, but right now they're leasing. That's highly attractive to someone who's coming here for a two-year stint at DIA, and that creates interesting competition for the balance of the market, which doesn't have that option. There's also, like, he's 100% right. There's also 600 or so units that are built to lease that have come to market or coming to market at Spring Valley, right off of the bypass with out-of-market developer Greystar.

And Build to Lease is happening everywhere. And I'm telling you what, it's impacting multifamily rents. I believe that. The rents are maybe stabilizing, is the positive term? Yeah. To describe what's happening. I agree with that. And this is not, by no means,

this is a market reaction to the conditions in the market. And I think it is a stabilizing factor. whether it's built to lease, build to own, more housing for everyone, everywhere is a solution to our housing crisis. Yeah. So I misspoke. You're up 40% new construction. That's 18% overall sales are up 18. And who's doing most of that building? Well, several.

You know, Lanier or Lanar, how many want to pronounce it's out there. Stanley is out there. Ryan is out there. Southern Development is out there. The folks that are doing it at four seasons, refresh my memory. Help me out here. Oh, God. I can't think of it in the name, but there's another northern Virginia in there.

But it's usually those type of... Kay Hovidian? Thank you. Go ahead and doing that. But I do just want to push back a little bit on the multifamily. Okay. Yes. These projects are now hitting the market.

but when did they start? Right. That's good question. Right. And if you think that market's going to continue, I think you would be mistaken. You're not going, I do not think you're going to see a lot of multifamily projects be processed in there. But the one that you're referring to in Green County, I know, my God, that's got to be six years, five years in the making before it got built, or am I wrong on that? That actually came forward with the freed companies in,

2005. I was actually there when that happened. And then we, of course, had the time of great unpleasantness and some other issues. Mr. Freed passed. And that project laid Fallow for a long time and was the moonscape. And then there were a few things that had to happen that happened to make that, again, viable, including the market picking back up. With that being said, I think it's important to record.

I think you may see some more this week at the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. They approved a rezoning for an increase of units at what was formerly known as Cavalier Crossing. They're adding, I think it's 125 new units there and doing it all on infill where they had too much parking. So rather than growing out to green, you're going to have 125, 2- and 3-bedroom units in the development area of Albemar County. And that, again, is multifamily. But that's a project that's been moving forward since the acquisition. Now, I did have a conversation with someone in the business that said there have been so many people kicking the tires around Cavalier Crossing over the years that it's amazing how many had talked to this particular banker about how it could work. and the pro forma's that needed to make it happen.

In this case, it was an out-of-town. Bonaventure. Bonaventure that has poured a fair amount of money into that. Refurbishing it and changing the model from four independent bedrooms that you could rent by the bedroom. Four or five hundred a month. Right, and then two and three-bedroom apartments. That's right.

They're taking the parking lot, and they're adding multiple. Multi-family, this is down Fifth Street extended, Bonaventure, Northern Virginia, Reit made this purchase. And this is going to have a significant impact on the market. I mean, there's a boatload of multifamily that's coming to market right now. Correct. Those have been, I understand what you were saying, Neil, but that's an existing project. We are amending an existing stipend and amending an existing zoning. That is way easier to do than starting from scratch.

So my comment was more from a scratch perspective. Of course, I'm more of an ownership thing. I think folks should own to build equity and appreciation and generational wealth. But Jerry isn't wrong. There are a bunch of multifamily that are going to hit the market in that. But that's not really, I don't think, is not really going to change the ownership model. It will a little bit. People will move into it.

It'll be more of a stopgap for a couple of years, right? Decide if they're going to stay here. or not, right? If they're going to stay here, then they're more than likely going to have children, and then they're going to be... We see this happen all the time. People come in, stay at the university for a couple of years, and then they don't leave.

Then they buy houses and have kids and build swimming pools. I mean, it's crazy. I can only be responsible of the buying of the house is the kids part. The kids part, you're not responsible. I am not responsible. I am not responsible. I'm not responsible.

But there's a... But there's the... I went to school, went to New York. I'm done, I'm coming back. You know, this is just a huge market. But, you know, kind of back to the question, Jesse, of, okay, we've got a 40% jump in units, a new construction in green. I consider what has happened is new construction, a 2.7 difference routine 427 in sales and 415. It's kind of stabilized the existing and the thing. And this is an argument that the pro-housing folks have been putting out for a while that if you increase new construction, it could potentially stabilize

it across the board. Right, wrong? What do you think about that? Yeah, I mean, generally in most supplied demand scenarios, I do believe that, you know, you build it, you do help stabilize, you know, the demands around an area, and especially in the housing context, you know, green doing what they're doing softening's the impacts in other localities, you know, whether green wants to hear that message or not. But the reality is, If you go and you build, you know, four or five hundred homes, which I think in that area, how many houses are getting built just in that? Well, over at Creek side, they have about additional 600 to build there.

Does that sound about right? Yeah. I mean, that is basically, I think Nelson County has 8,000 homes in total. I mean, if you add 1,000 homes to the mix, well, you know, people who are coming from the outside context to Charlottesville who don't really have a cultural connection, maybe to me or a familial connection to the surrounding counties. I'm like, ooh, specific house, suburban setup, this is familiar, I'm going to buy it. And I think from my perspective, as those areas have started addressing housing in those regards,

you're seeing that alleviating some of the major pressures on, but only on specific housing products so far. Because we still see in the Nelson County context, I mean, Median's old house is half a mill. I mean, wasn't it a year ago? It was that for a moment? Remember when I gave the presentation to your board? I remember. It was 409. Now we're at half a mill.

And now you're at a half a million. It was only a few years ago. And I remember it was Ned Galloway and I did this road show. And I remember the looks on your fellow board members' faces that they didn't believe that number. And that's a real number. And I think we're seeing that number that we're talking about satisfying a specific buyer. But in the Nelson County context, it's leaving that higher end looking for more acreage and a view. shed and access to breweries, wineries, and rivers right there in open. So in our area,

that middle buyer, obviously 500 to me, it's crazy to think that's the middle. But let's say 40% of that, those folks are in, it's tough for them. And when you kind of think about, but why is that in your marketplace, right? We have the topography issue. We have a land act. We have infrastructure. Who's the buyer profile out there? The buyer profile in our area is largely retirees who have come from a generation deep into the 90s. Boomers are capable of wearing red glasses. May have some hearing aids in the VA hospital right now. But no, that is the hardcore reality.

And we also see other, you know, we could talk about the pressure of such as short-term rentals, what that might mean. But overall, we do know one thing. We're not producing new housing inventory in Nelson County. That's for sure. So how can Nelson County look like green? I don't know if we necessarily want to have that much new housing inventory, but we do want to look at it from a holistic standpoint of zoning.

We want people to have the ability to go procure a piece of land and then do something with it that's feasible for their... And to that end, Nelson County is in the midst. They had a meeting on Wednesday night of updating their zoning ordinance. And the last time the zoning ordinance was updated, Elvis was alive. Carter was in the White House It was in the building 1977

Elvis was in the building Elvis was in the building Yes And they're They haven't updated it since 70s They haven't updated it since 1977 And with regard to whether Green wants to look like green

I'm seeing a lot of pushback in all the counties Sure On growth right now Often coming from the newer neighborhoods That don't want anything to change From the time they acquired their property Of course, yeah which is always the case.

And from a property rights standpoint, I look to the person who's sitting on 100 acres that is situated, or maybe 624, that's situated on US 29 in the middle of Lovingston. That has water and availability of services. And if only they could be in water and sewer. And it has power too. That's crazy. Who would own that kind of way? Who is that?

Who is this in the people of Nelson? I think we probably ought to talk a little bit about it. Are you okay with that? Yeah, we can talk about that. We won't go into. I don't want to say things out of school because I wasn't privy to the actual acquisition, but I think someone at the table was. Yeah, I was there.

And we as a county, we have been trying to address a myriad of different things. Obviously, zoning is one of our upfront and center things. First, we have to do is take care of our current infrastructure of our zoning. what's on paper, what a person can do to procure a piece of land, what rights they have. And you're exactly right. It goes back to the 70s. It needs to get updated. I did not know that.

Yeah. We have boarding houses still actively in there as a by-right use in a lot of places. And you also have a rather interesting by-right use in the A-1 that it's like kind of this cabin zoning, right, where you can go ahead and put like one cabin on one acre. you had like 50 acres, you can go ahead and do it. Kind of, yeah. There's some dwelling per acreage, right? It's a very unique.

We do a sliding scale as well for our zoning. I don't know. I don't know what other counties use that, but we're pretty well versed in that. We're addressing that as well. There was some interest in doing six acre lot minimum sizes. That was mentioned. And, of course, I said, well, I guess we don't want anybody to be here.

Six acres is big. Six acres is a lot, and if you're looking at a median household of half a million dollars, six acres is going to be like a hundred of it. Dude, we have four, nearly four and a half, and I'm going to tell you right now, that is no joke to maintain. It's a lot of land. It is no joke to make it. Six acres is a minimum. Would mean nobody

moves to Nelson. Sorry. That's what you're saying. He needs to kick me on the table. Nobody can afford six acres. I mean, yes, there are people who can afford it, but it definitely ain't the local. Right. So I think the number you need to focus on, in my opinion, is less the $500,

other than the number you need to focus on, your 20K below than you were. But wait a minute, before we go too far down this road, we were hearing about this land. Okay, we'll talk about the land. I was trying to give him an opportunity. I'm not letting me out. I'm not letting Jesse out of this.

So first off, what exactly did Nelson County do? So Nelson County, we looked at this land. We've actually been looking at purchasing this land way before me. Back to the early 2000, if not the 90s, the county has been interested in procuring for a myriad of different reasons, largely centered around job creation.

We as a county have a lot of interest in also improving our water and sewer infrastructure. As you know, we're in the media quite often. So trying to look from a holistic standpoint of what does the next, and you can't look at our government in a 10-year context. You have to look at it from a 50. You know, you have to look at how are we getting to the next century for infrastructure. And we do know you need infrastructure. So this particular property with the other partial that we have,

because we're nearing, if not a thousand acres, close to. We're going to be one... Yeah, right across the street around the high school, is we want to look at trying to improve our infrastructure along the 29 corridor for water and sewer. Along with that, what can we do to produce good-paying jobs in Nelson County? And, of course, along with that is the context of... Is there a play with housing with this?

We definitely do also want to do a lot of recreation. some level of access to a swimming facility, outdoor recreation. I have been a huge fan of sports tourism, and I think a huge compliment to our already agro-tourism-based economy is sports tourism, because it produces a huge economic event with a lot less of an impact to your area. And we already have festivals. We're already accustomed to kind of some of that market. But this particular property is supposed to be a huge catch for infrastructure,

for jobs and see if there may be some opportunity in others. We're going to be having a work session to actually pinpoint what this board wants to do. I think in several weeks I have to look at when that is in the September, October. And at that time, our board is going to be sitting down and saying, of these things, what do we actually want to do? You know, how do we want to angle it and how do we want to approach it? That is a huge ask. It is a huge one.

And it is, there's a lot of, there's a lot of Nelsonians who, are interested in this, of course, and they should be. We do know this. We do need infrastructure. We do need to produce something that is not just living off of an agro-tourism economy. We do know all those things.

Let's tie this together a little bit with your 15% problem. Sure, right? The drop in sales volume. We should put that back on screen. Well, no, the 15% I'm referring to is you drop in students. Oh, got it. Oh, yeah.

Also, sales volume. Sales volume. I was going to say I saw that 15%. I was the same number. Sorry. No, and we, that has been a huge problem for this, basically this entire century. We've lost close to, we've gone from 2,000 pupils, I think

at the beginning of the 2000s, and now here we are today, and we're approaching 13, 1400, and in the next 10 years, we're expecting probably it to hit 1,000. And how does the demography play into that? Huge. I think if you were to look at the census of what

the median age is. Every 10 years, it goes up 10 years. Nelson County, historically, going back to like the 60s, and it's really interesting looking at since Camille, of course, we come up on a special date recently with the anniversary of Camille. You had a huge loss in population. One, obviously, a lot of folks died, but two, land became worth nothing. Then you had the wintergreen event, and then you had some level of a boom, but we never really have had a population. boom at all. As a matter of fact, we're not even near our peak of like 18, 19,000.

I mean, when Skyler was pumping, yeah, thousands of jobs. Oh, yeah. You actually almost had more people in that area than you did down than Charlott. It was a huge population over there. So much so, they created their own infrastructure.

They had their water, sewer, hospitals, and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. But Neil Green's not immune to this percentage. right you're at roughly I think if I've got the number from 2016 17 until now you're roughly about 12% that 15% for you is from 2019 okay wow the the the the green county schools population is probably not in the same place as Nelson in so much as the housing that's coming in is more family friendly yours is gonna spike

yeah one one would think and quite frankly the the the the the budget piece for that is significant because your schools receive per pupil funding from the state and from the feds. Yeah. And that funding dries up when you don't have the students. That's what's happening

in Nelson. Unfortunately, you have to have the teachers what do you do with those teachers when all of a sudden you don't have the students for the blip. It's the reverse problem than what I was talking to former supervisor Donna Price about. And

she was saying that during the baby boom, they knew that this was a short-term, you know, five, 10-year deal. And they changed school. You went to school in the morning or the afternoon. They doubled their infrastructure capacity by changing the rules of the game. It's a fascinating idea. How much is green expecting to grow in student population? Are they already seeing some of that right now? I don't believe the numbers have come through yet, as you can see.

the Creekside piece is just coming on. So we'll be getting those numbers September. I generally use those numbers for our local government spending index, which folks can find at free enterprise forum.org under the reports tab. Where? My hearing agent, I don't have mine. I think. So I, go ahead.

I'll shut up. No, I was just going to say on the pupil piece. I think everybody's off base. Everybody's off base. We're also, I think from, When I went to a myriad of Board of Supervisor conferences, and FYI, I'm getting certified to be a Board of Supervisor. Okay. And I said, I've actually said I'm going to go get certified.

And I've actually got to learn, you know. Jerry has said you're certifiable for some time. I've never said that. I've never said that. Thank you. But my point being is when we saw kind of the pupil trends across the Commonwealth, it's down overall. And I don't really have this overarching fear of not even really necessarily fear, speculation, if you build 100

houses, are you going to get 200 kids? The answer is no. No, no. You might be lucky to get 10 or 15 in my opinion. No. So, I can tell you, Creeksite, because I've been involved in enough transactions. I also know who's building them

and looking at them. The buyer profile over there is me. Yeah, really. Sally Jesse Raphael? Sally Jesse. Every project that that they are looking at in your county,

because I'm kind of involved in some of them, every one of them is focusing on the boomer sale. They are not focusing on creating housing for families because right now, the average, the first child right now, for my friend Chad, is up to 31.9 years. People are 31 years before they're having their first child. They're 40 before they're buying their first house. And I can tell you in April, they're going to be,

I bet you that number is going to go to 40. 42. So they're coming into the market and the percentage of students that you guys are going to see are going to continue to decrease. I think so. I mean, I don't think there's any indication from a societal standpoint. Plus, this is where Jerry's going to jump in because the people that are coming in are a little bit more well-heeled. And they're sending their kids to private school. Our oldest is just started third grade this week at a local private school. And they're on a waiting list.

100%. For every grade. and it's a deep waiting list where our youngest is three going into pre-K is that pre-K 3, pre-K 4? My wife would know that answer. And they're telling us that if you don't sign them up

for the transitional kindergarten, the likelihood of you getting into school is not high. Wow. I mean, and that's not upselling. So in my, what was it, form of nicotine stain? What was it?

Go ahead, Rush. you're stumbling into the truth so I'm going to throw this on the table I do think Green's enrollment with the public schools will uptick though I will bet you a bottle of bourbon it does not where are you on that I believe you will see an uptick but it will not be double digits

it'll change the trend line is what I'm saying of course it will right now it's declining but it's not going to make up 12%. No, it's not going to make it 12%. Yeah, of course. So one of the things, I've shocked that you haven't done anything since

77 on your zoning. I'm not. I mean, that's not. Yeah. Because when did you adopt it? Like 72? Probably. Probably when it was required kind of. 72 is when it was required. I think Wintergreen had a lot to deal with it as well. Right. Right. I think Wintergreen coming to existence

is a big. So Green County, and I want you to push back if you don't mind, Neil, because every research I've done is landing on this. Green County is the only county that requires a fiscal impact analysis when you're doing a rezoning. Nelson doesn't, Louisa doesn't, Fulvana does it doesn't, Charlestville doesn't, Alamara does that. And just to paraphrase how this works is that if you're going to do a rezoning on that, you need to, the developer needs to hire a third party to go ahead and create a fiscal impact. analysis that is dictated by the county on how it's going to get done the

developer just pays for it it's kind of like getting appraisal done on your house you pay for the appraisal but the bank kind of orders it and there happens to be a project going on in Standardsville that started off at 500 which I've got the analysis for but it's going to be 400 units so that report is projecting when it's fully built out out of 400 houses there'll be 134 students so they will increase, but you're not doing 400 kids. Yeah. And the reason being is the product type.

Yes and no. The reason being is people are having fewer kids. It's a fertility. It's a reality. And later. But, I mean, there's a share of us that have done replacement value. There's a very small share of us that have done greater than replacement value with our kids. I mean, I'm one of five.

That size family isn't seen today. I did not know that. I am the middle finger in the family. I knew that. But I think our family size is shrinking, and part of it is because people are going later. And when you think that 60% generally of most localities budgets is education, K-12 education, And you see that going down in demand. You may be seeing some different things in budgetary decisions by localities.

Would you agree with that? Oh, I absolutely agree. And I actually think there's a really great example of that looking at the state's budget this year, watching education shrink and which item increased. Medicare, Medicaid, you know, some of that health care-related items. Those increased. And as we all know, older demographics usually have. some higher needs in the health area.

So I think that education piece is going to get thrown into, you're going to see a lot more in your EMS services. A lot of people think that if you bring in 500 new people, that there's a lot more EMS calls. Well, what demographics are we talking about? If you have a 55 plus, you know, we've actually seen there's some data points and there's like where there is some. This is the opportunity for me to tell you the story about

over the other side of the hill, right? So I have some clients that are looking to doing some projects over there and had some conversations with the planning folks over there. You know what they're worried about? What's that? What's that? Not kids. EMS. Yeah.

And I think that's, they are saying we cannot meet the medical needs of the people that are moving in there because there's this huge. That's on the other side of the hill between Stanton, Stanton. How do we do this? Stanton. From Stanton to Afton is a lot of my age. You know, the retirees are moving into that. that particular area. Developments are getting done, single family detached, single level,

you know, low steps. Sounds to me like the problem is you and your friends. Not Jesse. It's not me and my friends. It's 100%. So I agree with you 100% as it relates to that cost. The cost is going to be there no matter what. If it's younger demographic, you're going to see it in education.

If it's an older demographic, you're going to see it in, you know, your EMS and emergency related. And as you target this new land acquisition for recreation, and you're looking at a pool or some sort of thing, along with the economic development piece and perhaps housing, what demographic does that serve? Yeah, and that largely, we want that to serve both younger, really everyone. Ideally, it's trying to keep our kids, have them have something to do so that they have something extra in their community, as well as our aging demographics that need access to indoors. So where you're going to go with that is what I'm doing after the show. By the way, we have to rearrange our lunch.

My daughter, the youngest daughter is sick. Yon is taking care of both of the grandkids. I'm going to go after the show up at your grandkids. You know where I'm going? Where are you going? I'm going to the pool. Good. I'm taking them to the pool.

So you're seeing gray hairs taking care of their multi-generational kids, grandchildren, and we're blessed to be able to do it. But that pool will get used for that. Here's the deal about, and we've had this discussion before, and it's a little unfair to ask if Nelson's ever going to be like green. Not necessarily from the politics, not necessarily from the zoning, it's just undevelopable. Right.

Oh, yeah. I mean, the best land that you would want to develop is what you now own. Yeah, yeah. That's literally the only large-scale parcel. parcels, because there's two of them, that are available that has enough infrastructure to it to get the ball starting.

You know, my developer friends and builder friends might not be happy with this, but if you're redoing your things, I'd love you to see you to do a fiscal impact analysis because it takes the argument, it either makes the argument for no housing or it supports it, because it's either supports itself or it doesn't.

Absolutely, I agree. Comments coming in for Neil. This is a good comment. How much of the real estate purchasing is tied to biotechnology and what's going on around Rivenna Station? That's a great question, and I think we're seeing the leading edge of that now. Interestingly, I've done some sleuthing, and it's my understanding that the actual property, property of Ravana station and the area that's supposed to be AstraZeneca has not yet changed hands. It is still owned by the county, and the rationale for that is that they are still utilizing state grants to make it site ready, and they aren't allowed to use those state grants on publicly held or privately held land. So they have to finish what they're doing with those grants before they can close on the deal.

That being said, you are going to see a huge uptick in the next 18 to 20, 24 months of the interest in green northern albemarle, even down into Nelson, because those jobs are coming and they're paying. And so what you see now is folks that know they're on their way here coming for a vacation stay, you know, coming to kind of kick the tires. I remember when DIA moved down from, it was at Belvoir, I think, or, yeah. and they held open houses. And what were the two questions that everybody asked? Traffic and education. Those are the things people moving here from Northern Virginia

were concerned about. Those are the things the folks moving here from elsewhere. So let's talk traffic. Sure. We had a wonderful conversation about Long Island. So are they saying the traffic is worse here or better or are they leaving that area because of the traffic? to come here because traffic is better.

Traffic is relative. It is absolutely relative. I lived 13 miles from my office in Arlington, and it took me an hour to get to work every day before I moved down here. Now I'm 20 minutes, I'm probably 35

miles from my office, and it's 20 minute drive. If you're in Nelson and you miss the light, you know your whole schedule's off. Yeah. If you call it that type. Yeah, so it's funny. So I'm not funny, but I've been asked to do the last 100 miles for 9-11. A bunch of New York City firemen has asked me to do that.

I was supposed to take the train up. I booked the train, the bike, the whole nine yards. It was going to work. Yesterday, the train got canceled. I'm now in panic mode because guess what I need to do. Ride your bike up there? You've got to ride your bike. They actually do that.

But I'm now going to drive up. And I am having, I had a nightmare about it last night about driving up into that area. So we've got Green County, Nelson County. We're talking about different housing and stuff like that. You mentioned something about utilities. And I wanted to dig into this report that was done for this project in Stander'sville and take a look at it. And there's something, there's a number that I don't think a lot of people talk about, right? So Green County has a connection fee of $22,000.

So there's going to be 400 houses paid $20,000. Fifth highest in the state. Yes. But at the moment, it's $22,000, right? There's $400. That's roughly $9 million come in there. So what's on the table in this particular transaction is the developer is making all the off-site improvements up front for cash. it's about $4 to $5 million worth to work.

That project is going to net the utilities department roughly $5 million, $4 to $5 million, depending on how this strike out, and improve the system and finally get you pressure to your high school, which, God forbid, you have a fire in it, you can't defend it on that end of it. So when you start talking about infrastructure

and bringing partners on board, this necessarily does not need to be all-distance. done by the county by the county and the taxpayer correct now and i think whatever it is that we i doing we want to do this with the expectation of uh the a entity or entities and other grant opportunities to help resolve some of those pieces uh the biggest thing that we know is a county you need is a canvas and this land is the campus so i'm going to ask this question straight up ready you're not going to be the developer right i don't think we want nelson county being the developer at all. I think as we kind of

figure out which pieces, we might draw some squares as to what we think. Squares are good. And which ones we want to be recreation and where we want a business to be located. But, you know, beyond. Good answer, Justin. Yeah. So as moving D3s and loaders on this side now, I don't think that I eyeball the

case. So it's interesting, as you're doing a two generations worth of zoning rewrite, you have this idea of rezoning on government-owned land, which every time I've seen that happen, it happens very swiftly because the government is the applicant.

But I think you're... That's assuming that doing the applicant thing. That may not happen. That may not happen. It may not happen. But it may be a public private partnership. There's lots of maybes here. But any time the government owns all

the developable land in a county, it does make those of us believing in free markets worry. It makes you worry. Always. Sure. Well, I'm probably the most free market. I'm a pretty free market on our board. I do think that to some degree

is we are also conscious of you know, parcels of land that could be something, not being anything. You've also got to get the math to math. Yes. And that's going to be hard on that property. I mean, I don't know. I feel pretty optimistic on some... It's going to be hard. I think it's the long view. It's the long view that pays off in the

correct. And I think... The math has the math with a lot of calculus in between the sets of numbers. I mean, some of the some of the, I mean, the calculus for infrastructure, it almost feels like never works when the government's just trying to figure it out by themselves. So I think some of those things we are already going to have a calculus problem. The one thing that we know is when all is said and done, more will be said than done. Absolutely.

That's like that. What did you say? My hearing is in. That's really good. Yeah. I'm going to steal that one. Would you repeat that again? I'm sorry, I didn't pick that.

When all is said and done, more will be said than done. Okay. I read your lips. I just wanted you to say it again. He wanted to say it. He wanted to see it. you talk. I'll throw this to Neil. He follows this as closely

as anybody. Other storylines regionally, locally that we should be following. Good question. And then I'll get to some comments that are coming on the feed. That question's from me. Regionally and locally, there are always things going on that are of interest. Just about every locality

around us is considering the 1% sales tax referendum this year. That will change the dynamic. Some have said that it shifts the responsibility away from the state regarding

education capital funding, which is an interesting position. How does it not? Well, the point being there are demands that aren't being met. Oh, yeah. And you know, those who have seen

schools in some of the lesser affluent counties where I heard on the radio this morning complaints about a brand new school annex the academies having delays in opening the ACE Academies.

I'm considering other schools that I'm hearing about that have buckets catching rainwater throughout the school. And so I'm more concerned about less affluent counties throughout the Commonwealth. I'm sure Jesse talks to these folks on a regular basis. Down in Southwest, they can

tell you about how the coal mines have to still donate coal to heat the schools. And so now this referendum will be about capital and it is limited 20 years, but it will be interesting to see how each of the localities position it and how many people understand it. That's a storyline that goes across all the localities. Each independent locality has their own fun and exciting storylines, and I think that paying attention to what's going on in your backyard is critically important and becoming more and more difficult in this news desert that is known as Central Virginia.

The 1% referendum concerns me, and it is a way to drive CAPEX I get for schools, but it's doing so at a time when average Joe and average Jennifer has already got pennies pinched. Do you think the votes are there? Historically, educational funding at referendum, pass at it. about a 90 to 95% rate. Carlisle issue. I think the votes are there. But the votes are there because people don't truly understand what's happening. They just see

good for kids. And the thing you also run into... I also think that you're not... I think it may be different because once you start taking a look into demographics, why the hell am I voting for a referendum? I don't have kids in school. Or how about a family that's paying for kids that are in private

school? I think it might pass, but I don't think it's going to be at that high And it's not one cent, which is another misconception out there. It's one percent. It's also important to note. Up to 1%. It's also important note, groceries and hygiene items are excluded by the legislation, which is an interesting point.

That makes it a little less regressive, but every sales tax is a regressive tax. Right. It's funny. I'm not funny. We had an office meeting yesterday, and I ordered everything in from Lampo, the takeaway at our offices. And I didn't, because of the size of the bill, I just took a look at it.

$200 bucks? A little more. Yeah. And the meals tax, because I was going to leave a tip. It's like 12.9%. I looked at the meals tax. For meals and sales. I mean, this is just a pickup, right?

This is in wait. I usually kind of do a couple of bucks as a tip. That was a huge number. Huge number. I mean, what's your take on this? On the sales tax? Yeah. I mean, Nelson County gets hit with the LCI quite astronomically every year.

We're about to be- Local cost index. Yeah, thank you, sir. And why is that? Because our assessments have gone up astronomically, it's a very complicated formula that's related. And it has something to do with the schools, too. And it has to do with the school system. So having to deal with our state officials and what we've seen, we will be, Nelson County is expected to pay the maximum for the standards of quality.

education budget, which is a whole other thing. And that's because of your 15% or your decrease in. It's not just the pupil. The pupil's one thing, but the biggest is the assessment increase. That's the bigger piece of the... The state looks at it as an ability to pay.

Ability to pay, correct. I've got, next month I'm bringing in Chris Fairchild in because I want to talk about my county because we are on a two-year rotation, and it's very interesting. They're going to So our prices are dropping right now as we sit today, right?

But they're going to be looking at stuff that was two years old. And the last two years there was a substantial jump. So I see a huge increase in assessment and a huge pushback. Because that's not what you're going to be able to sell for your house. What's happening here in the Nelson context is when we get to the maximum, which we will be in line with like Fairfax and Loudon and all the other big players, We'll be in the top 12 expectations of the Commonwealth to pay for the standards of quality education, which is a big deal for us, because that means every two years we're getting $2 million pulled away from our budget.

I remember several years ago, you sitting in that spot, gloating. Yeah. I believe that's the right word. Gloating. Gloating that you had a substantial amount of money left over and you weren't raising taxes. We, yeah, that's changed. Correct. We do equalize every year, but the problem that we're really starting.

to see is we're not getting any relief with assessments our constituents are watching their assets go up astronaut leaps and bounce and assessments by state code must must be fair market value correct so if you would do today you're at 500 where if we're at half a million and we were at what two years ago 400 409 if 409 in the next four years from now is going to be insane yeah and so i have zero to try value is dropping correct right right your assessments are going to go up exactly because of that two-year gap. And that's where the LCI. So Nelson County is going to lose another $2 million. Why don't you do it

yearly? I know other than court. There's a cost piece. There's also the political piece. We're trying to understand. How do you go from 4 to 1? It's going to be a lot easier to figure out 4 to 2. I hear you. We've had some considerations on. But the state has zero intention, and it's been indicated to me

to actually address a lot of the LCI impacts. They say it. They have the J-LARC study. They act like they have all these new subcommittees, which everyone in government knows the subcommittee is a great way to kill something that you don't want. It's too easy not to change it. Exactly. And for them,

they have a lot of things outside the blame. You know, geopolitics federally, the Medicare-Medicaid, there's looking, all these other ones. And when they see localities, historically, they love making localities figure it out themselves. It's like some land-use stuff, right?

Then they get mad when we don't, and then they take our authority away, you know. Well, you know, what is that called? If land use is in local control and it's not working, maybe we need to fix, not have so much local control. And the state's been doing that. Accessory dwelling units is probably one of my favorite ones to talk about. Yes, in God's backyard? Yes.

Yes, in God's backyard. We're running short on time. We can go down that road. ADUs have about this much chance of being successful. They're too costly. It is unbelievable. Literally, I'm working with them. $350 a foot for,

850 square feet, who's going to afford that? As a supplemental income stream to their mortgage? Who takes a double, a mortgage against their mortgage to build a 30-year debt? That's what they're doing. 2017. Yeah, well, I mean, you have the, you're a builder. The only path forward to

that, literally, you probably have the better chance of success in Nelson County for two reasons. One is you got a little bit of space. Yeah. Right? Two, you can modulize. Correct. Right. And he's an effing builder.

Well, you can't, he can't, if he was the stick build a thousand square foot, and you correct me if I'm wrong, you've been a while done. It's 3.50 a foot, right? Is it 3.50 foot? Let me get, let me get this out. Let me get this out. Forget about the number. The cost to build a 2,000 square foot house and a thousand square foot house is pretty damn close.

Pretty similar. Without the land? Okay, you're fine. Who gets that? I do. You don't want to say that on the show. No, I'm not. No.

No. No. No. But modular works, right? But that's great in your jurisdictions because, as you know, you've got to have space. You've got to be able to get equipment in and out. It does not work in a confined... You also have manufactured housing, which is the OG accessory dwelling unit of the last century.

Yeah. So you can get a... They changed the definitions, which made huge difference. Huge difference. At the federal level. Yeah. Which made huge difference. We love that.

Now you can fund it. Fund it a lot easier. You get rid of the chassis. a whole bunch of stuff. Yeah, but that's not that difficult. That's not hard at all. But it used to be you couldn't get a loan. No.

They just would not give it to you because it was a car. Yep. And lending today is astronomically better for a manufacturing. I think the manufacturing housing world has a little bit more of a play for the accessory dwelling unit piece, especially compounded with the state's move on allowing manufactured housing in all places you can build a house. So I think there's some products out there. Once again, the state stepping in because localities didn't do it on their job.

Yes, yeah, unfortunately. Which is unfortunate. And, you know, I've been part of a national cohort since 2017 on ADUs, put together by Portland State University. And I've been hearing about him because of you and that national cohort since then, and I've seen nothing happen with that. And it's because of cost. Yeah.

It's literally coming down. I had a friend do it. He said it checked in it close to 400 a foot. Yeah, yeah. And the only reason he was doing it is because he had to because of an aging parent. Well. And then he did it not for income because they had no other job. choice. I built an apartment in my basement. Now there's you now where ADUs are two very different dynamics, right? There's internal and there's there's detached, right? You know, the basements. Internals are very different things. But that internal cost me. Yeah.

Thousand square feet. Now it's all ADA compliant. I had to build $50,000 worth of retaining walls just to get things to go. But I got north of 200k in that. That's just cost for a thousand square feet. Yeah. Right? Right. So, and we're blessed to be able to do it and thankful that my parents have a safe. And that's a basement. Yeah. Yeah, but it's a walkout and the retaining walls. It's actually better than in my house. But don't tell my mother that. Okay.

And we don't call it a basement. We call it a garden apartment. There you go. Yeah. A walkout garden apartment. Garden apartment. And my father goes, you mean an effing basement? Yeah.

So, gentlemen, back to the new construction end of it, and the rock star that is Green County in that department, if you pull out all the sales that's happening in Green County, we've had a 12% bump year over year in new construction. That number drops to 3% because everything else has happened in Green. You've probably got but another at least 500, 400, that I know of another 800 there, probably another thousand on top of that,

1,500, something like that in the pipeline? Yeah, and there are some that are going to be announced sooner that will be adding to that. Green is, and those are by right units that will be coming forward. And I think you're going to continue to see new construction being a viable thing as you see economic development prosper in Northern Outer, you're going to see Green County

becoming more and more attractive to that new economic development. And that's what's happened. That's where the buyer profile is coming down from the northeast corridor. Are we looking at zoning at Green County? Zoning is always, Green doesn't do comprehensive zoning, comprehensive zoning ordinances. They tend to do particular things at a time and they are

the state statutory minimum expectation. They're continuing. to find problems and work through them. There is a rather conservative bent, generally speaking, to the Green County Board right now. And I don't know that they're as eager to make those zoning changes to encourage additional development, but I think that they are eager to get it right.

Well, you have a very unique by-right ordinance in our footprint, and I'll leave it at that. that it is very unique. Is it? So nothing's by right. No, that, you have a very unique. Well, for instance, there's a parcel I'm aware of that is looking to subdivide two acre lots and if you do a certain number of two acres lots, you have to put in a state road

in order to serve those lots. Right. If you go to 10 acre lots, you can do a gravel road. So that's a big difference. It's a huge difference. And both are by right. options. Wow. That's pretty good. Well, again, my developer friends won't like this, and I know we want to wrap up here, but if you could do a fiscal impact analysis like Green does, it is a really

excellent, excellent tool, and it gives real data for the decision makers to look at. We should plug before we close how we can support the Free Enterprise Forum and Neil Williamson, and then give some closing thoughts to the esteemed supervisor Rutherford over here. So, Neil, plug. way. Free enterprise forum.org, we go to the meetings you don't want to. Which is all of them. That's a tagline, right?

That's a great tag. He's got a lot of one. That's a good one, I know. Which is all of them. But the, I encourage you to go there, read our blog post. We have over 1,700 blog posts on the site right now. That's awesome. The latest is it's about time regarding why a project takes so long to get through.

the Altenborough County process and how much it costs. We actually ran a calculation and it's just under $10,000 a month per million dollars of a project. Well, that's a real number. And if something takes 10 months, it's more money than if it takes six months. I'm a liberal arts major, but I did know that. The other thing I know is that we can't, the free enterprise forum isn't free. We can't do this work without the support of folks like you. And so I ask you to just click on the donate button. You'll be able to donate online, and it's a square thing. It's really important, and I probably treasure the smaller donations more than I do, the larger donations,

because it means I'm doing right by you as a small business. So we have lots of folks that give to us in the 100 to 1,000 range, just trying to give a chance to sunlight into these meetings. that there are seats available. Well, Neil Williamson, President for the Enterprise Forum. Jesse Rutherford. Then we'll close with Keith. Well, Neil, I put plug in.

I always enjoy what your takes are, and I hope many people will take you to heart and contribute to you. I just want to say it's an honor to be here to be with Keith. I do make some business decisions based off of what I see. Usually when I say, hey, Keith, do you think this is going to sell? And he says, maybe. I usually say, oh, boy. but I really enjoy it, Keith.

No, you knocked it out of the ballpark in Green County. You are providing new construction, the right product, the right price. Hey, first time home buyers. 100%. Notting it out of the ballpark. But beyond that, as relates to the land, you know, the land is going to be a canvas that takes us into the next century. I have full confidence in that.

What will be able to be accomplished will last multiple generations. That was the purpose of it. That's what it will do. So I'll ask you, this will be my time to close. But that amount of money, was that taxpayer dollars, or where did that money come from? That's taxpayer dollars. There's nothing the local government does that it doesn't touch a taxpayer dollars. Now, is the mechanism cash temporarily, then finance back, and then we use interest, that's financing strategy.

But everybody should know that. It's taxpayers' money. Gentlemen, thank you. Thank you for coming here. Thank you for doing this. it makes what I do really easy just to sit here and read lips. So I appreciate that.

And thank you for not lipping anything obscene my way, so I appreciate it. That you know of. So thank you. Have a great weekend. Everybody have a great weekend. I'll let Jerry close us out. Keith Smith, Neil Williamson, Jesse Rutherford,

and Judah Wickhauer behind the camera. Real talk with Keith Smith. Archive, wherever you get your social media or podcasting content. Thank you for joining us, everybody. So long. Nicely done. He's going to tell us the microphone. They should be off right now.