# Confirmation Hearing- Board of Adjustment - August 14, 2025 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Board · August 14, 2025 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6517 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6517?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2025-08-14 - **Body**: Board - **Last revised**: February 14, 2026 - **Length**: 3,957 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1, with speaker labels folded in from Granicus closed-captioning. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Confirmation Hearing was held on August 14, 2025, and was presided over by the Vice Mayor. The meeting had a focused agenda consisting of a single item: the confirmation of Mr. Ross Boggess to the Board of Adjustment. The hearing concluded with the confirmation being approved. One vote was taken during the meeting, no presentations were given, and no public comments were heard. ## Attendance The following members were present at the Board meeting on August 14, 2025: - Vice Mayor - Council Member LaGrie - Council Member Lynch - Council Member Curtis - Council Member Brown - Council Member Sheehan - Council Member Reynolds - Council Member Beasley All eight members were in attendance. No members were absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions The Board took one recorded vote during the August 14, 2025 meeting. - **Motion to go into closed session** [timestamp: 25:52]: The Board voted to enter closed session. The motion passed by voice vote. No individual vote counts or roll call tallies were recorded for this item. ## Appointments The Board took the following appointment action during the August 14, 2025 meeting: - **Ross Boggess** was appointed to the **Board of Adjustment**. ## Contested Items - **Short-Term Rentals:** The August 14, 2025 Board meeting included a heated discussion regarding the impact of short-term rentals on neighborhoods. The debate centered on concerns about neighborhood character and potential conflicts of interest. The structured data does not specify which individual Board members were involved in the exchange, the specific positions each party took, or the outcome of the discussion. No vote result or resolution is recorded in the available data. ## Confirmation for Board of Adjustment for Mr. Ross Boggess [timestamp: 0:01:30] The Board considered the appointment of Ross Boggess to the Board of Adjustment. Boggess addressed the Council directly, sharing his background, his interest in city planning, and his perspectives on development and short-term rentals within the city. Several Council members participated in the discussion, including Council Members LaGrie, Lynch, Curtis, Brown, Sheehan, Reynolds, and Beasley. The conversation touched on Boggess's qualifications and his views as they relate to the types of land use and zoning matters that come before the Board of Adjustment. The Council ultimately voted to approve the appointment of Ross Boggess to the Board of Adjustment. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Motion to go into closed session --- ## Full transcript ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ All right, good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining us for this confirmation hearing today on August 14th, 2025, confirmation for Board of Adjustment for Mr. Ross Boggess. If you'll come to the podium, please, Mr. Boggess. And how this is going to work is we're going to ask you to kind of give a little introduction about yourself, why you want to serve on BOA, and then I'm going to open the floor up to my colleagues for questions and comments. Then we'll go into closed session back here, make our decision, come back out and let you know. So that's how it's going to go. So feel free to please tell us a little bit about yourself and why you would like to serve on the Board of Adjustment. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So my name is Ross Boggess. I've grown up in Lexington and went to UK, got to stay living in Lexington since graduating from UK, despite working out and about in Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Texas. But when I was in college, didn't know what I wanted to be, came across city planning and absolutely fell in love with what the potential for cities are after going to Greenville, South Carolina. And go to 4th of July and you see people out on the suspension bridge and you just see what at that time the mayor would call a great American city as one of the pillars in his office. And that really struck me of what is possible and what's possible in our city. So figuring out what that craft is drew me from city planning into real estate and then from real estate specifically into development, where I get to create. I don't just get to sit on the sidelines and say, oh, that's what I wish was there, but actually try to find ways to grow the real estate development, grow the community through development, and then grow the economy through development. And so that's professionally who I am. I personally live over by Woodland Park in the 3rd District, get to walk downtown in a mile to the farmer's market, get to walk four blocks to Kroger, and also get to understand the complexities of the urban nature where my house was built in 1901. A lot has changed, even though it was redone in the 90s after a fire, but getting to understand the complexities. And then also I think it's the saying of you can't complain about a public official's vote if you didn't vote yourself. And so if I'm standing in front of bodies like this in other cities and people want to complain about what Lexington could have been but a vote didn't cast in their favor, I don't have a voice to chime in on that if I didn't even put in an application. So I'm thankful that the mayor's office is entertaining the appointment and hope to answer your questions. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Boggess. Colleagues, please sign in with questions or comments. Council Member LaGrie. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Ross, thank you for your interest in serving and your engagement in the community. I know that we're looking for diversity of age and background on our boards and commissions, and it's nice to have young people who are invested in the future of their city. I've asked this to other applicants who are interested in the Board of Adjustment and similar roles. Can you tell us a little bit about your decision-making process, how you make nuanced or complex decisions, and can you kind of walk us through that, especially if you want to in the context of a role of this type? Yeah. Thank you. And first answer about the diversity. I'm appreciative to represent the third district, as it's one of the main districts that has a higher load of Board of Adjustment applicants than some of the others. But to answer your question about how to make decisions, I think there's a baseline of just understanding the Roberts Rules of Order and being able to understand how the process works. Having stood from this partition in other bodies, that gives me the familiarity to the process, but then also having the baseline of understanding the codes. That lets me understand when somebody is trying to say something here, that there's probably a deeper meaning that they're asking you to understand what they're saying, reading between the lines of I want this or I want that. We have to have a context larger than just what's set up here to understand that general vicinity, like the code calls for to say how does it affect the general vicinity. We need to have to understand that. But decision-making, that's something that I'm sure you all have a lot of things that you all have to hear the exact same testimony, but then understanding to represent the constituents. And as a body, we have an at-large duty to represent the different parts of the city as they come forward as applicants. Thank you. Vice Mayor, I might log in with other questions, but I'll just start with that. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you for applying and being willing to serve your community. For me, I always start out with an applicant's application. And something that you wrote piqued my interest. You said, my goal is to ensure that every project we consider is evaluated not just by the letter of the law, but by the spirit of what we want Lexington to become. So I want to hear, what is the spirit of what we want Lexington to become, in your opinion? Yeah. It's a city that is constantly growing. We're 250 years old this year, but we're only 99 years into zoning. And only since 1984, I think, was Board of Adjustments' first charter. And so we have to always be thinking, well, what do we want to become? And I think that's that pedestrian-friendly city that has neighbors that love each other. You don't want to come in between two neighbors that you approve something and they don't feel heard. And so I'm excited to see that there's more and more pockets in Lexington that claim an identity. And I hope that we think that making a decision in, I don't know, around Mill Street, is going to be different than making a decision in Heartland. And so what I want it to become is that great American city where the economy is thriving, where people don't feel shut out immediately, which is something that a lot of people say about us from other cities. And so if you were to be appointed to the Board of Adjustment, what is your role in ensuring we become that great American city? I think being that welcome mat. There's going to be people that are coming here because they believe that as small as having a driveway that's the size of two cars can fit into it, or as big as being able to put a business in a residential zone in the form of a short-term rental. That's a way to, a short-term rental is a way that folks can be welcomed to the city. And that's something that I think we should be more welcoming to, to people that get to experience the authentic nature of Lexington. My next question is, when is development not good for the neighbors? And please give a Lexington example. Yeah, when it's not good is when it disrupts the general vicinity and it's not adding to the economy, it's not adding to property values, and there's more detractors than there are additives to it. So, a good example of that, I'll have to think on that because most of them that are bad have been shut down. There's a lot of that in the graveyard. Okay. Think about it and let me know if you have a response to that. Sure. You mentioned short-term rentals and I saw from your application that you served on the short-term rental work group. Are you a short-term rental operator? Yes, I am. When you were on that work group, what did you learn and what did you contribute? Yeah, so I was able to buy my first house over on Oldham Avenue where I lived on the first floor and Airbnb'd out the second floor. That, being able to have that extra income is what allowed me to buy in Lexington and not have to go to Jesmond County, Scott County, where it was a little bit more affordable because I really believed in Lexington. What that looked like was running home at lunch breaks to do laundry and to change sheets and welcome people in. We have a family condo on Limestone that I co-manage with my mother. What that's looked like has been, we've had all sorts of people come through that as unhosted. There's a lot more risk with that because our neighbors aren't just an alley away, but they are a wall away. I'm sorry, I'm blanking on the original question regarding to the short-term rentals. When you served on the short-term rental work group, what did you learn and what did you contribute? What we contributed, the proximity. Thinking about the condos, as we have those rings that say if we're outside of it, that's great for somebody that lives over in Andover. But if you're in the center city condos, a condo complex that loves it, and it looks like it's layered on top of each other and you're right next to an entertainment use, that was something that I pushed for, that if we want to be in a B2B zone that's meant for entertainment, designed specifically for it, how can we push for that to be by principle use? And so the difficulties of that is that we have to write text that makes sense for the entire city instead of zone by zone or neighborhood by neighborhood. Thank you, Vice Mayor, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Ross, for this application and for being here today and being willing to come up and answer questions before us. So I'm going to start by asking you the same question that I'm coming to ask in all of these confirmation hearings, which is in order to prepare for this, and I understand that you have a background coming before legislative bodies. What did you do specifically to prepare for this hearing today? I read the charter and document from beginning to end, watched the past six months of the BOA hearings on the GTV3 archives, and went through the last questions that you all have asked and showed up on Monday to the meeting to introduce myself to the folks that are already on the board and ask if they had any questions or advice or anything like that. That's some very thorough preparation. I do appreciate that. Shifting gears a little bit, one of the things that I know about you, both from your application and also just from the Internet, is that you co-host a podcast. And I was wondering if you could speak to the role that you think the Board of Adjustments and our civic boards and whatnot have in communicating the ways that they operate to the public. Whether you feel that your skills in that area are applicable here, if there's any sort of interplay there that you could speak to. Sure. So, foundationally, the podcast interviews all the developers, economic developers, community developers, real estate developers. And we don't really, there are different factions inside of the development community, and we don't like to stick inside one, we want to hear from all. So I want to say that. And I also want to make sure that if there's a conflict of interest with anything with that, then happy to recuse myself later. But I think it's a really exciting week to think about what CivicLEX is doing and proposing for all of the board involvement. That's a great way. How do we communicate what boards are available, what board service is? And then also, so that when people come up here, they're not as intimidated by a board and that we can get really authentic applications and have really strong dialogue. Because you're not, Robert would have ordered out of a good conversation. So, that's my hope. Thank you so much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And thank you, Ross, for your application. Thank you for the service that you have provided and that you're willing to continue to provide to our community. Some folks have already touched on short-term rentals and kind of the role it's going to play with the job that is before you on the Board of Adjustments. And I know they do and make decisions on some other things. But one of the most pressing things right now and the most visible and people care the most about are short-term rentals. I think you added some valuable insight on our work group and shared some perspectives that we took into consideration with crafting that policy. So, could you share with us what you think about the policy as it stands now in regards to short-term rentals? And if you can make decisions and base your decisions on the information that's provided, neighborhood feedback, what's your own thoughts and give an unbiased decision on those applications? Sure. So, I don't think that my thoughts on what the text is, is something that I should weigh in on because it's voted on and it's done. And so, as there's personal privileges to weigh in on that, happy to. But for the board in front of us, we have to be within, there is no unreasonable circumvention of an ordinance or a zone. So, personal opinions can't interfere with that. From there, though, I think when you do have to think about what is there left in the judgment of should this be approved or not, that's something I've seen a lot of great benefits from it. And it's difficult to be in a seat when you only have people saying no, no, no, no, no. But the neighbor next door is like, really, I don't mind. And so, considering that and knowing the difference in the load factor of an Airbnb that is at about 50% occupancy, which is what Lexington's average is right now, versus one that is going to be so cheap that they're wanting to go for 90%. That's something that, as an operator, I'll understand and be able to contribute to the board, so that we don't have vacant houses in residential zones. But we also don't over-commercialize a neighborhood. Thank you for that. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm going to ask about short-term rentals. You know this is a topic of interest for my neighborhoods in my district. And so, first, you mentioned potential conflict of interest. As an operator, or in your short-term rental operator role, or in the other roles that you play for your profession, how would you define a conflict of interest, and when would you make the decision to recuse yourself? Yeah. If it's one that I'm personally involved with, say I'm in the radius, I think is one of them. If I have any financial gain or loss from it, or if I have some sort of personal relationship with that, happy to ask legal if there's things that I'm missing. Yeah, and I ask that because, you know, as council members we face the decision about recusal or not. Sometimes we go to our ethics commission and they can give you an opinion on when you should be recusing. Or in the moment, you know, certainly our law team can do that. But sometimes we have to, like, be prepared to be viewing things and making sure that we're keeping up with it so that we know in those moments and making those judgments before it even gets to that point. So having kind of a definition and, like, thinking that through is important. I want to go back to your last answer with Council Member Brown because you were talking about ‑‑ I'm just going to be blunt about it. My neighbors would not like the answer that you just gave because it felt like you were promoting why a short-term rental should be in a neighborhood. And part at the request of the Board of Adjustment, when we did the last revision to the short-term rental ordinance, we put in a statement that says the chair can admit all pertinent evidence for the board's condition, including but not limited to sworn testimony of those present, letters and documents submitted for the record, and reports from LFUCEG staff. So I would like to hear more about how you would take the neighborhood perspective when they're here or when they write in. How would you take that into consideration? Sure, yeah. I think just like if this was a court case, you have to show harm. And what is that harm that Airbnb is doing to the general vicinity? And so for your neighborhood, that's very different from mine. Three doors down was a slumlord campus housing beat up that a husband and wife bought, redid all of the outside. I used to have fraternity parties that were going wild until 2 a.m. Now it's a short-term rental. And it sleeps a very high occupancy. But that was a great add to Oldham Avenue. So that is not to say that my answer was for every single one of your districts. But that was something that is a consideration. I've seen some benefits of it. I also understand that nobody wants to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into their primary residence. It's their dream home in Chevy Chase. And then have a new neighbor sleep there for two nights every single week. That's not it. So understanding the character, and I keep fixating on that general vicinity term that's written into the text, is so critically important. So how would I be able to read those letters? I'd love to read those letters. I'd love to hear what they're seeing, saying, what they're scared of. Because we also had the person that stood up here in this position that was up for confirmation this time last month or back in late June. She said that she was very opposed to short-term rentals. And then she said it actually wasn't that bad. So that's not to say that we should be the parent to them and say, hey, just trust us on this. But I do think that there's both fear and there's actual harm that could be added to a neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Colleagues, just kind of be aware of the time and keep your remarks and questions brief, if at all possible. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And thank you, Mr. Boggess, for being here. And I've noticed that over the years you have done a lot in Lexington. You've been very active, and so I appreciate your involvement in the community. I think it's obvious that you might have some opinions that are different than other folks who serve on the BOA or maybe in government. I think it's helpful to have a variety of opinions and a variety of perspectives when we're looking at people serving on these boards and commissions. That being said, how would you, or do you say that you would work with people that serve with you that have a very different opinion? Yeah, so getting to meet everybody on Monday. When I was in high school, there was something called Mayor's Youth Council. At that time, Harry Clark was in your seat. And so getting to introduce myself as somebody that might be able to be a peer to him. He and I are in very different walks of life right now. That diversity is important, but I think there's the lady and gentleman-ness that we all have to have professionally, even when we do disagree on a principle of something. That's part of the beauty of democracy and then also having a representative democracy. So I look forward to the disagreements where it is shown out in front of everybody. And so people can hear what the spirit of the city that we're chasing is. Just like the way that when Community Action Council came forward and said, we want a ten-foot fence. And I said, well, actually, there's really no effectiveness above a six-foot fence. That volley was beautiful. That was a great board of adjustments. It was great. So I look forward to being able to say, hey, this is what I've seen personally has worked. But I also look forward to learning what other people have experienced personally that are above my years or experience or anything like that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Beasley. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Hi, Ross. Thanks for coming before us today and agreeing to serve on this board. I just have one question. So we've heard you talk a lot about developing Lexington and short-term rentals. How do you feel about the preservation side of that prominently are African-American neighborhoods? Yeah. So all of the neighborhoods are going to be shifting. Making sure that there isn't a weaponization of code enforcement or The crazy jump in taxes where somebody's house has been in their family for generations is something we have to be sensitive to. And understanding short-term rentals do add value in the eyes of David O'Neill's office. That's part of it. But I don't know, I understand where there is a concentration of African-Americans. I don't want to call one neighborhood an African-American neighborhood in Lexington. There's definitely neighborhoods in transition that we need to understand and protect. And be able to be that board of adjustments where it milds the blow of things that the marketplace might be trying to push. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Boggess. You can take a seat. At this time, since we don't have any more questions, I'll entertain a motion to go into closed session. So moved. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. We're in closed session. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Open session. Mr. Boggess, if you would join us back up at the podium, please. We really appreciate your willingness to serve and I'm glad to inform you that this