Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Selling Greenville your favorite real estate podcast here in Greenville South Carolina I'm your host as always Stan McCune Realtor right here in Greenville and you can find all of my contact information in the show notes if you need to reach out to me for any of your real estate needs here in Greenville or in the greater Greenville area and just a reminder as always if you like this content then like it actually press that little like button if you're on YouTube really easy just tap on your screen if you're on your phone whatever you'll see a little thumbs up hit that would really appreciate if you wanna leave a comment leave a comment on there I'll respond or I'll at least read it and give you a little reaction and make sure you subscribe to the show you don't want to miss any future content like this that's the best way to do that today I have a special guest a few months ago you might remember that I had my first political candidate on the show Tina Belge now I've had politicians on the show prior to her coming on but Tina Belge ran for Greenville City Council at large and won and some people I think jokingly said that I propelled her to victory with this show I don't think that that's true I think she won on her own merits but I have another political candidate here and I'll introduce him in a moment but running for Greenville County Council in District 26 but before I get into our guest I just want to give the same disclaimer that I gave when I interviewed Tina which is that having a guest on my show does not constitute endorsement now I'm not in District 26 which is the County Council district that we'll be talking about today so I won't be able to vote for this one specifically but regardless I wouldn't be giving an endorsement on this show and so don't consider anything on here as an endorsement by me or by any of the groups that I'm affiliated with and I'll just say this as well if I have a political guest on the show it's either because I have a pre existing connection to them or because they reached out to me to come on to the show those are my requirements and I don't if I have a political candidate or someone that is in office in our state or in our area that reaches out to me that wants to come on the show I do everything I can to get them on the show I don't say no on the basis of party affiliation or anything like that I think it's good to hear different perspectives and part of that is because my political beliefs are quite frankly pretty amorphous and I don't think that there's any politician in our area that I agree with 100% and so and I'll just say as well I'm not gonna be super disagreeable on here if you wanna get that kind of content go to you know mainstream media go on TV to CNN or MSNBC or Fox News or whatever you'll get plenty of disagreeable political content we're not gonna do that here we're just gonna have a good discussion about Greenville County and so without further ado I am interviewing if you're watching on YouTube you already see him Daniel Rumfelt who is running for Greenville County Council District 26 so Daniel welcome to the show thanks Dan I appreciate you allowing me to come on absolutely so Daniel I'm just gonna let you have the floor here tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're running for Greenville County Council was saying I grew up here in northern Lawrence County was I was born there raised and went to school there and my wife and I my kids moved to southern Greenville County District 26 about 14 years ago and ever since then you know we've liked to call this area home you know grew up in the area we all did and my kids attend the schools around the area Woodmont Middle Woodmont High School and I take the area very sensitive whenever things affect our community with issues and stuff like that and that's kind of the reason why I'm running I have different business ideas that I would like to bring to county council and you know there there's a time when you can campaign and then there's a time to govern and I really feel like that we need a different approach for South Greenville on a lot of issues affecting Greenville in our area particular and I hope to win the election on June 9th in the Republican primary absolutely so probably you know we say these districts even I as politically involved as I am I tend to be like OK where where's that district where's this district if you're looking on YouTube I'm gonna actually pull up a map but for the listeners we're not gonna leave you in the dark here so Daniel can you describe for the listeners exactly where District 26 is and if you're looking on YouTube it is kind of this darkish yellowish color here on the South End of Greenville County alright so a little bit of geography lesson I love geography in school so if you look at a map of Greenville County the southern part of the county if you see 3 85 all the way up through Simpsonville Fairview Road and points westward towards the County Line with Anderson is pretty much all District 26 that covers the Piedmont South Carolina most of the Piedmont area on the Greenville County side goes all the way up to the toll road I you know the toll road I eighty five and all the way down to the bottom corner in Princeton South Carolina right there at the tri county corner so it is a one of the biggest districts in the county with around 40 42 to 46,000 folks living in the and it's growing every day you know that growing every day in the Simpsonville and Fountain Inn area oh yeah and so like I said that is a big area absolutely yeah it's a huge district and in in terms of you know you've got people spread out and what what's interesting about Greenville County is the county really is quite large and so you've got you know what's it 12 County Council people right covering this huge land mass and the issues are different for all the different people in these different areas right cause if you're in a you know in a more dense you know Greenville City kind of part of the county like that's a completely different type of they're facing a lot of very different some similar but a lot of very different issues than what the constituents in District 26 are facing yes Dan I've started door knocking across 26 about a month and a half ago and I could tell you at the front doors talking to the people across our district it you could almost see of one unified voice about what the main issue is and of course that's infrastructure and roads but it you have other issues the further south you get in the county you have a you know police presence folks want more police presence towards the County Line with Lawrence and then you go to the west folks want more controlled development you know towards peak Mod and areas around Fort shows so it is a vast area with different opinions that face with different issues but as you know and everyone in Greenville knows that infrastructure is seems to be the biggest complaint that everyone shares yeah absolutely and that that's actually a the perfect segue way into one of the main topics that I wanted to talk about which is infrastructure but also growth right cause those two things are tied at the hip and that is everything that people want to talk about when they're talking about Greenville County Greenville City you know Simpsonville City Mauldin City of TR all these different places so this is obviously a real estate podcast but it just so happens that growth and infrastructure are directly related to real estate here in Greenville so I'm gonna paint a quick picture here and then I'll let you kind of give your thoughts okay so the push and pull when it comes to growth as I see it is that there are people who are moving here and our area is obviously growing and without that growth quite frankly the past 30 to 40 years Greenville wouldn't be the thriving community it is today right I heard a I was in a small group session with the Mayor White a few months ago and he said that there was a time this is crazy to think about there was a time in downtown Greenville when he knew every individual that lived in downtown Greenville by name there were so few people it was like less than 20 people that lived in downtown Greenville now there were still people that would go through you know would shop and what not but nobody was living hardly at all in downtown and it was growth ultimately that allowed downtown to become what it is today and obviously that's Greenville City right that's different than what we're talking about we're talking about the county Greenville City has been more positive towards growth than the county has in a lot of ways and to that point from my perspective what I have seen is that the loudest voices in Greenville County are anti growth they're tired of more apartments they're tired of more homes as it is the County Council chairman ran with you know with signs that said we need more parks not more apartments something like that was on his campaign signs and of course as you said people are rightfully concerned about the infrastructure that can't keep up but again not trying to steal your steal your thunder here but I wanna I'm going somewhere with this there's a secondary issue and this is the one that's near to my heart that a lot of people don't understand and that it that's if we build more parks and not apartments not houses then housing becomes more expensive and statistics are constantly showing that it's already unaffordable for people to buy a home until their late 30s at the earliest and the and the cheapest housing right now is actually new construction on average so if we stop building in order to slow down growth ultimately we're messing up the supply demand dynamics and causing supply to be decreased while demand if the if we're not stopping demand then we're causing prices to go up which is exactly what's been happening now for several years so all of that that whole picture I just painted how do we balance the need to continue to grow and to continue to build housing to accommodate that growth while also building out our infrastructure and keeping the anti growth crowd from screaming every month at those county council meetings as they like to do well let's start with I know that I know that was a lot so you can whatever angle you wanna take on that go for it OK so in my view the way every everything needs to grow if what's the opposite of growth you know take a take a ride take a trip up to Detroit off the north side of Detroit you see what the opposite of growth is sure so an area is just like a body you got to breathe in and it breathes out you got to keep the flow of jobs you got to keep the flow of folks moving in going and coming so to be successful I'm a huge uh proponent of inland grow development you know build neighborhoods not quick developments build neighborhoods that's what the Planning Commission would like to see is more mixed use Mel uh makes use developments and I don't believe that we spreading out through rural areas is actually the answer to here for our housing crisis because you know when a developer comes further south where land is cheaper at I mean that that should be a red flag for everyone because if a developer wants to bring his homes out with the land's cheaper you should be for inland development you should support folks developing where infrastructure already is because county roads are not up to par to handle 30,000 additional traffic to these county roads so if you support rural areas if you support parks if you support trying to maintain Greenville County's identity as being green you need to support you need to support development in areas that's suited for it you can't say no to development but you can be smart about it and we need to put guard rails in areas that already have the infrastructure so we can bring in families that that wanna move here and help the area grow according to our plan that we see in the future so do you think that what do you what do you say to those that are just like well even outside the rural areas the infrastructure can't support additional growth well outside the infrastructure outside the area and you still see growth that is that that fault is on the leaders now we can prevent growth coming into the rural areas by creating conservation districts you know Scofield Town started one about 10 20 years ago and inside those conservation districts we can actually have our own LDRs our land development regulations and in those LDRs we can actually tell a developer hey you're not going to put a home on 6,000 square foot lot you know inside this conservation district whatever the community that we sit down together and decide how much land is enough for one unit to one dwelling unit so you know we could go up as high as a 42,000 square foot a little under an acre maybe three quarters of an acre if a if a subdivision wants to come to the rural area it has to follow our regulations for rural living and there was a attempt several years ago to try to do spot zoning and I'm a huge against any kind of spot zoning because once that area is zoned it is zoned forever and I think zoning is the wrong direction to go to I feel like that we have the means already to control development with our LDR's and they are I'll give you this they are confusing to a lot of developers they're confusing to a lot of people in Go County and but we need to get the right people in the right positions to help ease and to make things easier so everyone can better understand our goal right now we have no direction with development you know we appealed the Udo earlier last year I mean the Udo was part of Greenville County was set to streamline a lot of to kind of clarify a lot of issues that developers are having but we want do you want to explain that to I covered this a little bit with Tina Belgium when she was on here because she was a big part of that Udo I don't know right if everyone knows that but do you want to explain that real quick for the listeners what that is or was so The Unified Development Ordinance was actually put in place to streamline to clear up a lot of misunderstandings and a lot of gaps that our current LDR's have at the moment with zoning with you know the subdivision committees and all of that it was so is so jumbled right now that the UDA was supposed to combine them for a better guard rule for development well I will give this there are some things in that Udo that need to be revisited some things I didn't agree with and the whole way the Udo was written should have had more citizen input should have been open to more input from councilmen and but right now I I've seen a few reports that they want to revisit and go back to bring it back and so it confuses me why we keep there there's no direction right now for development there it's like we're being pulled in so many directions but there is no one voice telling us how to go forward and do you think that do you think that's by design by the current county council or do you think that it just happened that way you know without people trying to do it that way I think it just happened that way I think I think a lot of times you know and these and these UDO's these LDR's are so confusing even to staff even to even to county councilman and I really feel like that it just got off the path and I think that we need to get back on the track and we're not on track yet we got to get in with uh what we can do with development of we got to get with the Planning Commission and see what their goals are we got to see what council's goals are and on top of that we got to respect property rights you know when you buy when you buy property you don't wanna be you don't want your neighbors telling you what to do with your property but as long as you're going by the law you know you shouldn't have a an issue with that but and we're seeing issues to this day that the Udo would have prevented when we have a car wash issue across the county there's car wash issues development issues the Udo addressed that so there was a lot of good that we had in the Udo and then we had some stuff we needed to fix in it wasn't perfect but we could have fixed it instead of just completely dismantling it right so I'm the kind of guy stand that I'm gonna tell you not I'm gonna tell you how it is I'm not gonna try to tell you just to be nice to you I'm gonna tell you how it is and frankly you know we got to get some kind of direction going for development there is no direction there's two or three studies taxpayer dollars on studies on how to do things and we're gonna try to contradict what the studies are doing so you're wasting so I'm like I'm saying I I'm gonna tell you how it is you know cause this is the reason I wanna run is cause a different business approach you know you know listen appeal to a higher authority on especially taxpayer money and taxpayers listen to what they want and try to guide them in the in the correct direction for saving rural property and growing at the same time at a responsible rate absolutely so let's just talk you know just like a you know sometimes I can tell that you you're a policy wonk which is great that that suits me probably not every listener is what most listeners just wanna know about is well what are we doing about the growth right besides you know Youtube and all of that what would you say if you know if a listener came on here let's just say I've randomly selected a listener had them pop on while we're recording this and they said right we need to stop all housing development like entirely Greenville is growing way too fast just do a moratorium flat moratorium on all housing the infrastructure can't support it like what would you say to someone like that well I say well where do you want my son to buy a house at you know I want my kids to stay near here you know I want my family to stay around here if they go out to buy a house and what if what if a family down the road wants their kid to build a house behind their parents house and you wanna stop that you can't stop building homes because it's not the property owner's fault that your government has not set up an LDR or any kind of guidance on development you know I know Easley I think Easley tried to do something like that but their issue with their issues they had were completely different from what Greenville County is facing sure and so and I I really don't know outside you know in in the states where they completely stop you from building you know I think they do that in China or they have done that a few times in Soviet Union so I'm I don't I want to kind of shift the national issues yeah there the moratorium there's been a few moratoriums on city levels around here typically they don't last super long yes but the county the county like I said needs direction on and I don't I do not believe a mortuary is it the answer for that because so what do we do about the infrastructure though what do how do we because that that's the concern the sewer the roads you know yes storm you know I hear people in Simpsonville talking about storm water like you know what do we what do we do about the current infrastructure cause that's what people are being told and they're telling others well we don't have the ability to do this and so and county council for the past several years has basically been like yeah that that's our stance as well so I'm curious what your stance is on that so being a a leader either in the state or a local you need to you need to follow the laws not just in your local level you need to follow the laws at the state and know what the state is suggesting or the state wants to do with that being said you know I will if elected I will never raise property tax because of infrastructure Greenville County is big enough has enough of people and have enough of visitors to where we can actually sustain a consumption uh fee a consumption revenue to fund infrastructures and the issue with the with that a dedicated revenue stream that would help maintain our county roads and help repair them build them and extend them is exactly what we need so when folks come to Greenville County to eat to shop to play I feel like that they should help contribute to the infrastructure that they use and instead of it falling on mine and your backs only we look at the NC Double a tournament that comes to Greenville how much money does that bring into the county or look at black look at Black Friday you see how much money that folks are out here on Fairview Road in Simpsonville or Orchard Road spending I mean for Christmas I mean that money there you know I did the math for one day would have bring in at least a court almost $100,000 in one day to help fix the road so I don't really feel like moving money away from other resources in our county budget is the answer to fix a county problem county wide problem a depleted other areas are depleted already so you want to take what little they already have away because you feel like that they are not as deserving because of your past experience with them you know yeah what are we gonna take it away from police we're gonna take it away from teachers like who are we gonna take it away from fire department right so well you just opened a can of worms ha ha ha ha ha okay we can come back to that maybe yeah right but so but like I said we you go ahead no go if you sorry I wasn't sure if you were done we have a we have we need a good direction with development in Greenville County and we need to have a better business decisions and I know everybody has their own opinions you got 12 opinions up on council and you have everyone wants to go their own way but you got to have a unified direction and there is not one right now and we need to and we need to have the correct people in the correct positions starting now going forward we have our 10 year comprehensive plan coming up here soon that the state may requires every county to have so in within the next two years probably next one year staff county staff is going to begin getting stuff ready for all that yeah and that that's a big deal you know cause that sets the course for many years assuming that it's actually followed and not scrapped you know like the Udo was so some of what you were saying made me think about and I'm not gonna ask you to take a position on this on the show cause I said there would be no gotchas but we need to talk about the penny sales tax just for a moment here okay and listeners on my show know that I came out in favor of that not because I'm pro tax I'm actually pretty anti tax in general but I'm pro we need to fix roads and I can could tell that that wasn't gonna happen in the absence of additional money coming in and so I've talked a good bit about the penny sales tax so I'm not gonna rehash all the all the things about that but obviously I'm sure you know several on County Council including the incumbent for District 26 spoke out against the tax and encouraged people to vote against it and it failed by a very small margin and most likely those 4+ county council people that that spoke out against it and went to the media and all of that likely were the tipping point so what what's interesting to me is that then County Council did kind of a classic in my opinion a classic political maneuver by then saying well we'll look at impact fees as a way to bring in more tax revenue now I say this is a political stunt because impact fees are essentially a tax on developers when they build a house that then gets passed along to the homeowners increasing the cost of homeownership which is why I'm discussing all of this so studies have shown that you know a $5,000 impact fee for instance increases the cost of home ownership by roughly $15,000 to $20,000 after it's all said and done which in my experience as a Realtor is often enough to prevent a first time home buyer from being able to buy the home that they really want versus the home that they have to settle for that might be smaller or kind of in an area that they didn't really didn't want to be at you know now they have to commute an extra 20 minutes and we don't have much public transportation in Greenville which is probably something we need to get to in the show cause I know that's something that that you've talked about a little bit but obviously this this maneuver of saying well we're not going to increase fees on you know sales we're not gonna increase the sales tax we're just gonna tax the developers obviously that was some red meat for the anti growth crowd right that's exactly what they wanna hear cause they don't understand most of them at least pretend like they don't understand that this actually is a tax that's paid by home buyers not the developers pay it upfront but they get all that money back eventually there's a reason why the here's one thing people don't understand well let me say two things real quick first off realtors don't just want indiscriminate growth everywhere we talked about this pre show we don't want Greenville to turn into Manhattan no nobody wants that but we do want home ownership to be as affordable as possible and the simplest way to do that is to increase supply of homes that are out there which can only be done with construction and there's a reason why when we talk about impact fees The National Association of Home Builders which has a presence in Greenville just like they do everywhere else they don't care you know what they say when the impact fee discussion gets brought up well we're still gonna sell homes we're still gonna make money they don't they don't care how much the home buyer you know my children your children what they pay cause they know that they're going to get their money so I think that that's very telling when you actually talk to the people that are controlling development I shouldn't probably say controlling it but the people that are lobbying for development let me say it that way in our area they don't care about impact fees so that tells you everything you need to know about whether they actually hurt developers or not but where I'm going with all of this is that last month Greenville County Council kind of got egg on their face when a consultant that they had spent six months consulting with and spent thousands of dollars paying to explore what they could do with impact fees came back and said that impact fees are not a good idea for funding roads and other forms of infrastructure in part due to a lack of additional tax revenue like the penny sales tax would have brought in the very thing that that members of County Council grandstanded against so again I'm not gonna ask you if you were for against the tax unless you wanna volunteer that but I wouldn't recommend it because you're gonna have people that hate you on either side but all of this the way County Council acted with regard to you know like you were said revoking the Udo then going you know saying that we're going to put on the ballot this penny sales tax but we don't want you guys to vote for it and then saying we're gonna study impact fees and spend all of this money trying to figure out what we can do with them and that only to be told you really can't do any you can't use the impact fees like I think the study I read a little bit of it I didn't read the whole thing but it basically said it's helpful for like sheriff's departments and a few other departments but for infrastructure it's not physical infrastructure it's not a good idea without additional revenue so it just seems very chaotic like there's no direction to your point earlier so what if anything could county council have done better with regard to all of this or do you have any ideas for like here's how I would have handled that right well in reference to the impact fee study that you mentioned earlier they did recommend if we did impact fees it would be on SPDs the fire districts might can implement that for newer facilities newer v you know needed aspirates or battalions then there was a recommendation for the sheriff's office if they want they're gonna need to get more space in the future but I believe the city of Greenville moved out of the old Annex building and now the sheriff's office is able to take over more room so I think the need is not as dire as it was before that so what an impact fee like you mentioned is that you can only use it on a capital projects and that would be building a new building for the sheriff's office or if you're in a school district a capital project would be building a new school or but it's it gets tricky it gets really tricky when you try to do infrastructure like roads for impact fees because it can only be near the development itself and it and it and it's there's more to it with that and a lot of municipalities are kind of getting away from that because there's so much legality in using impact fees and on your point that it does pass on to the home buyer when they buy a home you know or if what if someone is not in a neighborhood or subdivision that we want impact fees to go to what if it's someone down the street that the nearest neighbor is about a half a mile down the street you know he has to pay impact fee but that fee doesn't you know so to get back with to your point about you know what would I have done different you know I'm a numbers guy Stan I'm a huge numbers guy and numbers don't lie and you know the folks you know say that there's money in other places to fund infrastructure there's money in other places and there is only Greenville County's budget is only $4 million that money is going to other things in our budget $4 million and that's it and you know it's about it's about what $1 million per road basically per mile something like that roughly so it was interesting too and what's fascinating is that after the after going over the budget if you take time to understand the numbers and if you actually understand accounting cause it takes now believe me I'm not an accountant I'm not a CPA or anything like that it does take someone that knows how to read government budgets to understand what it's saying you know and sure and numbers you know you could play around right now I think our only source I think the majority of Greenville County's revenue is on property taxes you know that is all Greenville County gets his property taxes only red and then there's like I think maybe like 15 15 20% is like other fees from code enforcement and marriage license and driver's license and you know getting you know what I would have done different is that if the and messaging for the penny sales tax was not great I mean I think we should have messaged a penny sales taxes it wasn't a penny it I mean you should have just said 1% sales tax you know if you had done that I also let folks like you and me on that commission to pick the roads you know I feel like we can start this whole process over again and with the help of staff but with folks like you and me if you want to be joined into the commission you know we got commissions to help pick the roads and the tears of roads that get fixed with the penny sales tax let my neighbor be one or let the guy across town be one but somebody that's not associated with Greenville County or associated with developers or let's get those people the citizens of Greenville County own a commission to tear the roads to to prioritize projects and then put that what they decided to do put that on the ballot and have people like you and me vote on that on a 1% sales tax for infrastructure and just clear the messaging up you know you don't have to always go you know go full force in that you can you can actually just be honest with people that's all people want is just be honest with them you know don't be the politician just tell them where the money's going and get people like them on the commission you know so that that's what I would have done different you know instead of spending a year two years trying to figure out infrastructure and taking a fellows away from fire departments and school districts to try to fill a county wide problem is just not the answer can you can you elaborate on that cause I know that's I know from having researched some of your stuff going into the show I know that's a that's a big deal to you so you wanna explain that to the to the listeners absolutely thank you Stan so back in the end of last year council voted to move the Filot and to put it into the infrastructure fund can you explain to people what the Filot are so a fee and Lieu taxes is basically given to a company or a development that comes mainly an industry that comes to the area and it basically cuts their 10% tax rate which is in our state constitution for whatever reason we're one of the highest tax you know tax for industry and commercial in the entire southeast and it's in our constitution we can't do anything about it only folks in Columbia can so as Greenville County tries to make it easier to be tax cause I'm for lower taxes so I don't understand folks that are arguing against Filot because Filot is lower taxes for everyone you know right your neighbor your neighbor pays 4% when you know the business comes down and they drops from 10 to 10 to 6 I believe it's 10 to 6% but anyhow that I believe you're right yeah it's 6% and the fellow is actually designed to help the infrastructure in the area around the development itself that's my view on a fellow so you have school district school around that to help with the influx of people to move to work at the plant you have the fire districts have to use that money to help bring up the code and help train and get more fire equipment to protect a bigger facility such as Isuzu is coming looking to bring around 900 jobs to the area so but believe it or not that Philo money is not going to go to the fire station or the school district in the area for the families and for the people that's coming for to work there so it's actually going to go fix a pothole somewhere in Tigerville so my whole problem with that is that yes we have a rose problem but fixing our roads should not mean that we're creating three other problems at the same time you know there is means that we can do this but we just don't have the direction that we need going forward to fix the problem yep absolutely yeah and it and it's been interesting as well to see you know the Filot have you know this was more of a talking point a few years ago but they were kind of weaponized a little bit right it was like kind of like Greenville County Council you know it used to be that it was like kind of a rubber stamp kind of thing where it was just like if you if you met certain criteria and I can't remember exactly if that was a part of the Udo or not but if you met certain criteria you just got that right and then all of a sudden it became kind of a well now we're gonna start picking winners and losers like you know like county council should have the authority to do that and you know I'm a big private property rights guy sounds like yeah sounds like you are as well like that just really really bothered me to hear that they're you know that that was the direction that our county was going in is that they're gonna decide who the winners and losers are in terms of you know what developers come in here and get these you know these sorts of tax breaks and how these things how this money gets out of it was just it's just not a system that I think should be designed where like a few county council people can kind of hijack it which is the way it seems like it's gone well that that's why voting in in primaries is very critical for everyone and I encourage your listeners to make sure you vote June 9th in in the Republican primary or if you tend to let your voice makes so much difference in June especially on the Republican side because whoever wins normally the primaries and if you're in a very red district you're automatically gonna win in the general election so it's important that that you study the candidate and you see what kind of knowledge he has to bring to council do you want him and his knowledge to represent you in Greenville with these new companies developments with our infrastructure and future ordinances that come to the across the you know the Dias so you got to really weigh in the options that you have there what you have now versus what you could have in the future and yeah so getting back to the winners and losers comment about the filo's now granted I am also a winner loser kind of guy like for example right now data centers is kind of a hot topic for a lot of places right now and I actually propose I wish that we would pause development for those for about a year in Greybull County primarily because I want to know what Columbia is doing Columbia's got probably 4 or 5 different bills different studies going on about how they can environmentally should they be under NDA when they go before county council like should we be more transparent with just that particular industry so folks can know what's coming to there and the whole NDA the whole NDA is another issue with developments because they don't want the you know the trade secrets they don't want the trade secrets to get out to other competitors so I understand the whole NDA issue but the but you also have to respect the privacy of everyone even businesses but that's why Columbia is looking at this right now and I don't feel like that we should be approving that kind of industry if Columbia wants to say hey you got to have we got to change our environmental regulations for data centers you know we don't want these data centers to be this close to a school or a residential area because you got that going on right now up in York County with the whole solar and Spartanburg you got Spartanburg having issues with data centers so really we need to take a pause on that so we can get better guidance from Columbia because like I said we don't know the 20 year effect of a data center what's gonna happen in 20 years you know what's gonna happen to the energy issues you know I know at the national level the Trump administration is actually trying to push for more data centers because of the current AI race with China and overseas so I get that we need to try to keep our data here on the homeland I understand that and I know he's really for self energy for these data centers to generate their own energy and that's something also to be looked at so South Carolina is looking at all that right now and I feel like we need to just Pat tap the brakes you know temporarily on these data centers so we can get a better guidance on where we can put them yeah well I'm hoping and I don't know how many years away we are or if it'll ever happen but this whole idea of putting them in space sounds like a really great solution I guess maybe I mean at some point we might have rings like Saturn you know around earth because of all the junk we're putting in space but at the moment it seems okay but you know I don't know I don't know if that's gonna ever come to fruition but if we could get those things off of earth and just have them yeah constantly getting solar from the sun and you know that would obviously be the dream but I don't think you're gonna find too many people that disagree with you on the data center question I have you I'm curious have you spoken to any other people on county council about that one currently on County council no not right now no I mean I made a post about it a public post about it and I'm pretty sure they seen it but outside of that I didn't I didn't write any of them about it or anything like that okay yeah I was just curious because that is that's certainly a hot button topic right now and you know for my purposes is it a private property issue kind of but at the same time I think people still have a lot of other options for you know if they want to sell land to a developer there are a lot of other options for other developers that should probably be able to compete you know with whatever a data center developer would be offering for land which brings me to a point and one of my final questions here before I let you go cause we've gone for almost an hour here and I try to try to keep these to about an usually they end up being about an hour which is usually a sweet spot for these interviews but I'm gonna pull up your district map again here real quick eh can you see that yes I see it alright perfect for a second I couldn't even see it myself so let me see here give me one second zoning here we go so your district so if you're if you're on YouTube and you're watching this you can see that I've got a map of the lower portion of Greenville County it's a lot of color on it except along the I guess that's Anderson County border and then the southern most portion of Greenville County is more or less unzoned this is the second highest concentration of unzoned land in Greenville County second only to the very northern most part of the county from what I can see on here so a few years ago county council voted to restrict land owners in unzoned areas from developments that require septic tanks unless they make those development lot sizes at least one and a/2 acres so mm hmm so if you if you own unzoned land and you wanna put a subdivision on it and that subdivision requires septic tanks your minimum lot size is one and a/2 acres which is 3 times what the state requires obviously this was applauded by the anti growth crowd that we've talked about a few times here and the environmentalists loved it as well an interesting little right and left commune as it were happened over the specific issue but as a realtor it concerns me in in a couple ways one the president not president as in President Trump the president concerned me that if County Council can just impose unilateral restrictions on unzoned land then isn't that functionally zoning the unzoned land without going through the zoning process right that's one question and as part of that don't people buy unzoned land specifically so that government can't tell them what to do with it right that's kind of the whole idea I mean I've sold I've sold land multiple times and that's a big deal to people they're like I want to be I want no restrictions I wanna be able to do whatever I want on this land and including to be able to possibly develop it or sell it to a developer and my second concern is obviously on the property values portion of it obviously developers can't make money building one and a half acre lots anymore like maybe there was a day when they could do that you know there's a handful of neighborhoods in Greenville County that have those larger lot sizes but that was back in the day so let's say that you own 100 acres which I don't know if you do or not I don't but let's just say theoretically you own you know 100 acres 200 acres whatever and you plan to pass that along as an inheritance to your children which is what I hear from a lot of people you know they've there's been this land in the family and that's gonna be their inheritance you know a big part of their inheritance to their children what's only as valuable as what you can use it for at the end of the day and if it can't be developed for residential purposes then it is obviously way way less valuable than it was prior to this unilateral ruling with zero oversight by Greenville County Council so I'm curious what your thoughts obviously you know what my thoughts are so I've kind of I've kind of showed my showed my hand and I'm fine if you disagree with my perspective but I'm curious what you think about that right well the primarily the primary reason for doing the one and one and a/2 acre for a septic tank for a home is in unzoned areas is typically the rural areas and a lot of folks that live in the rural areas have been there for generations or folks that don't want to live in the city so this this implemented was to try to save the type of living there and when you come to the comment about was this sort of like the uh regulating land without the zoning I wouldn't necessarily say it was red regulating as much of as it's a guide a development guide in in unzoned areas because really we want to protect what's most important to our county and that's our natural resources in our county from you followed the whole Paris Mountain incident they had up there with the hotel they wanted to bring to the mountain and then you know we got we got sensitive areas across the county that we want to protect like the Fork shows area we really want to protect that area because it's got a rich history of you know agricultural and we want to protect our farmlands through there so I wouldn't necessarily say it was an attempt from the government to regulate it without zoning but I think it's more of a development guideline you know we don't want a major subdivision come in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a cow field you know and next door you got two other cow fields we I as a as a rule area we live in a rural area we don't wanna see that because when we wake up we wanna hear the roosters crow and we wanna see the cows outside but no I don't believe it was a way to bypass zoning I just feel like it was a way to guide development you know we're fine if you want to live like we do but we actually want to maintain a sense of privacy out here we like we respect our privacy we respect others property rights and we just we just don't we just don't want that that's just uncharacteristic for our area is to have a major subdivision you know with that much and that's and that's why it was put in there not so much as a as a deterrent but more to make a developer realize that hey you know I'm not gonna get my money is worth by coming down here because if I had to put a house on every one and a/2 acre I'm gonna put more than I believe it's six if it's over six uh homes dwelling units coming to it you have to you have to go by that so if it's a minor subdivision if it's a mixed use you don't see mixed uses down in those unsold areas but as earlier we mentioned that I'm all for mixed use development up towards the city you know and that would actually reduce traffic if we do mixed use you know folks won't have to drive so far to the bank if we had or a grocery store if we had mixed use more mixed use development so but that all goes down to just the way of life we have down here is privacy we lack our privacy up in northern part of the county and the southern part of the county you know the bigger cities Greenville Greer you know Fountain Inn Simpsonville all those areas are primed to be neighborhoods and we want that we want as a world resident I want neighborhoods but I want neighborhoods in the city or around the city outskirts you know going around the interstates you know where we have the infrastructure for travel better but down here we just have more of a country we're living and we respect that and we hope those that come down here respect that too and that's really why we did that you know it's just really wanted to save our future where we could go out fish we could go out and fish when we want to go out and hunt when we want to go down the creek and swim when we want to so it's just a way of life that we were we saw it was encroaching on our life and we wanted to try to give it a little we respect development but we want it to we want it to have a guidance a direction so if no developers can afford to build that sort of development though isn't that kind of a back door to a more back door way of doing a moratorium unfortunately you're right but and that's where I have an argument with trying to get folks to understand that you know you got to be supportive of affordable housing in the city you know if you don't if you don't support affordable housing in or around the areas that actually need the housing they're gonna come down here they're gonna come down to the rural area to develop because the land's cheaper and I hope they that the past leaders seen that with this whole acre and a half that you know if we get rid of affordable housing funding across Grand Rapids County completely they're just gonna come down in the rule area and I kind of see something like this more as a pre preventive move in the future and that's just how I see it and you got to I as a Republican I get it you know with when it comes to being against affordable housing because nobody gave you a break kind of mentality but if you looking at the 30,000 foot view of everything in the future where the developers gonna go where the land is cheaper and that's down in the rural area so like I said I believe that it's making an inconvenience it's not stopping development it's not stopping it one bit but it's making it it's making it more it's pushing it it's pushing it in a different yeah area than those rural areas and that's absolutely and that's and that's and that was a good I I believe that was a good move because someone noticed and someone seen how removing affordable housing out of the cities they don't have nowhere else to go where the land is cheaper is in the rural areas and they take over farmland they take over so I applaud that decision I don't see it as a memorial or getting rid of development I just see it as being responsible that we don't want that kind of house on top of house down here you know I heard a and I mentioned this in a recent episode but I was I got to experience a live gubernatorial forum with 4 4 of the people that are gonna be doing primaries and one of them had for the governor and one of them had the idea he mentioned that something like 90 I can't hold on let me see if I can pull it up here real quick it was an interesting quote OK here we go he said that well I thought I had it here but it was something to the effect of that ninety percent of people live in 50% of oh here we go this was Allen Wilson Attorney General Allen Wilson he said ninety percent of South Carolina citizens live in 50% of South Carolina counties and he wants to create more opportunities in those counties that are the other 50% and I heard that and I was like ooh that that other 50% is not gonna wanna hear that hahaha cause that's exactly what we're talking about is the you know the counties that don't have as many people that are it's the farmland the pasture land all of that yeah I think what he's referring to is that the latest census report I think it was two years two or three years ago the census came out with a forecast of where most of the people will be in 2030 2040 and of course our area is probably it's on it's on course to be around I believe it's on course to be around the Saint Louis outside Saint Louis kind of population and outside Dallas Fort Worth and so San Jose California is actually a great example about the Greenville Spartanburg Anderson area where it's heading so and then and we just wanna try to protect that with the rule of living but sure going back to the Allen Wilson I think he was referring to like counties like Allen Dale County or counties like uh up around for some odd reason it if you've I'm a data guy and you sound like you are too but for some odd reason in the next 10 to 15 years it seems to be a decrease in population along 95 for some reason across the state I'm not sure other than Florence yeah other than Florence County I believe there is a decrease in population from Allendale all the way up through which is which nothing is in Allendale and I think Wilson was actually referring to trying to give opportunities to those folks in the counties that don't have interstate commerce that don't have interstate travel and which honestly I'm all for it they'd probably be all for it because I think they want to keep their sons and daughters and folks nearby instead of the outskirts of the city and yeah I didn't particularly have an issue with that with his comment it was more just when I heard it I was like there's gonna be some people that aren't gonna be happy but to your point maybe I maybe there would be some people in some of these perhaps oh yeah that's close yeah those folks along that 95 corridor and I think there was a place they were trying to put a a casino you know which is you know not you can't do that in South Carolina but they were wanting to change the law which there's areas Bamberg I believe Bamberg you know and I'm trying to think Orangeburg you know areas through there they actually want development they want industry but because of the location and as yours as a realtor you know location correct Greenville Spartanburg and Anderson is actually in a prime location because it's actually the halfway point between Atlanta and Charlotte so that is a perfect location for businesses to put a hub in in you know in South Carolina so and that's really what's attracting people is cause of the opportunity to the upstate but at the same time the other parts of the state is not doing as well as Greenville Columbia and you know Charleston either outside Charleston Jasper County's doing great I think Jasper was one of the fastest growing counties in the entire state right now everyone wants to Horry county is one of the fastest in the entire nation yeah so or so which I believe Myrtle Beach you know we always gets a bad rep but I think Horry County is turning the corner I think they're getting its act together both you know financially and where they wanna go cause they didn't have for the longest time they never had a a direction they wanted to go and I feel like that things have improved a lot with Myrtle Beach I think things have improved a lot with Atlantic City and so things are getting better but things are also the opposite in the state you know I mentioned Allen Deal you know those folks are looking for jobs and they have to travel a ways to just work that decent wage so but like I said I think Wilson was probably and I'm not like I'm not defending the guy or you know promoting the guy but I'm just saying I think he was referring to the counties that doesn't have the necessary wages for those to survive or sure or opportunities that other counties have so yeah that make that makes perfect sense well Daniel I've kept you long enough on here and you you've been a great interview one final question here at the end of the day why should voters vote for you when on what was it June 9th is the primary yes June 9th when why should the voters vote for you on June 9th this is because Greenville County and South Greenville particular they need a different direction we need a guiding we need a we need to know where we're going and we don't know where we're going and I feel like with my experience and with the with my temperament that we can actually get back on track I feel like if you elected me you know I'll fight for you I'll fight to get the information you know I'll know what the local issues are I know what the state issues will be and you know I have a guy I believe in having a personal relationship with who represents you and the one that represents you is the most is normally your city councilman or county councilman or even the fire commissioner they all know who you are they represent you at a bigger impact because you know you can vote for president national anytime but the person that impacts you the most is your fire commissioners your sheriffs your you know your local county councilman city council 100% all they affects you the most and I wanna be the next guy that South Greenville sends to Greenville because I feel like I have a good grasp on what we need I feel like that I work hard to get what the folks need in in their area and it most of it's information I also want to listen to you so if you care I like to love to talk to you more just go to my website www.danielrumfelt.org and or you could reach me through or Facebook I'll be glad to talk to you and I'll put contact information for Daniel in the show notes I think I think you we just lost him there for a second but I will put his information in the show notes and then you guys can reach out to him as you want to so that was Daniel Rumfelt everyone running for Greenville County Council in District 26 again primaries on June 9th that primary will almost certainly determine who ends up winning the election I'm not sure if there are any Democrats that are running and so usually that Republican primary is where the person who wins is decided so make sure you go out to vote on that day and if you like this content then please like it rate review subscribe all of those good things if you want to reach out to me for any of your real estate needs I would greatly appreciate you go into the contact information you'll find all or into the show notes you'll find all of my contact information in there and I'm gonna put Daniel's information in there as well so please feel free to reach out to him with any questions check him out thank you guys so much and we will talk again next time!