Sapelo Island residents are seeking a pause in the enforcement of a controversial zoning ordinance while the Georgia Supreme Court considers whether to let stand a judge’s decision last month to halt a referendum on the same issue.
Attorneys for the residents say the county has little to lose from the injunction but that the residents risk losing the character of their Gullah Geechee enclave if more of the larger, taller houses allowed by the new zoning are built.
“If it takes a year before the Supreme Court decides, we don’t want them to issue 15 building permits for 3,000-square-foot houses,” Attorney Dana Braun said. “So (an injunction) sort of preserves the status quo in the event that we’re successful on the appeal and successful in the referendum.”
Braun and Philip Thompson of Savannah-based Ellis Painter represent Sapelo residents Barbara Bailey, Christopher Bailey, and Stanley Walker. They filed a motion for the injunction in McIntosh Superior Court on Monday.
The zoning controversy began in September 2023, when the McIntosh County Commission effectively doubled the size of houses allowed in the Hogg Hummock neighborhood of Sapelo, home to one of the last Gullah Geechee communities in the United States. Gullah Geechee residents, descendants of enslaved West Africans, fear the resulting gentrification and higher taxes that come with it will force them from their ancestral land. County commissioners say the decision will bring in more property taxes.
Sapelo residents and descendants put into service a little-used state constitutional right that allows citizens to petition for a referendum to overturn unpopular decisions made by local officials. After they collected more than 1,800 signatures, McIntosh County Probate Judge Harold Webster in July approved the petition and a special election to put the repeal of the zoning directly to voters. On the same day, the McIntosh County Board of Commissioners challenged the validity of the election.
Superior Court Senior Judge Gary McCorvey last month sided with local officials who believe that the referendum’s $20,000 price tag was a waste of taxpayer money. McCorvey halted the McIntosh County referendum after 826 people had cast their ballots in early in person voting.
The residents quickly filed a notice of appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court. Now they’re seeking an immediate injunction.
In the motion they ask the court to “enjoin the County from enforcing, approving any permits under, or otherwise taking any actions pursuant to the amended zoning ordinances that were to be subject to the referendum in this case. An expedited procedure is appropriate here because nothing conceivably prevents the County from enforcing the amended zoning ordinances, permanently and irrevocably altering the nature of the affected areas of Sapelo Island, and stripping Intervenors and the rest of the County electorate of their constitutional rights and their rights of appeal in this case.”
Cumming-based attorney Ken Jarrard, who represents McIntosh County, indicated the county would file a response Friday.
The zoning amendment increased the maximum for Hogg Hummock homes from 1,400 heated/cooled square feet to 3,000 square feet “enclosed within the exterior walls,” more than doubling the allowable size. Since the zoning was changed in September 2023, new permits have been requested or issued for four properties in Hogg Hummock. Of those four, at least one appears to exceed the previous maximum square footage.
Sapelo residents have filed a separate lawsuit seeking to overturn the zoning based on civil rights grounds. Oral arguments are expected to be scheduled before the end of the year in that case, McIntosh County v. Grovner.
But the referendum appeal represents the first opportunity to request a suspension of the new zoning rule, said Miriam Gutman of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is representing Sapelo residents in the zoning challenge.
“Recent amendments to the Georgia Constitution prohibit us from seeking an injunction in declaratory judgment actions against government/state actors,” Gutman wrote in an email to The Current. “So we are delighted to see the Petitioners have moved for injunction, to curb months of stall tactics by the County.”
Jazz Watts, a Gullah Geechee descendant and community leader who also works on environmental justice issues for One Hundred Miles and owns property on the island. He hasn’t looked at his property tax bill but has heard from others in the community that their bills went up.
“If they’re allowed to build these larger structures we know that it’s going to take away, not only from the character and the culture of the community, but it is going to drive people out,” he said.
“You know people come to Sapelo because of this beauty, of the way that the structures are built by the hands of those Gullah Geechee craftsmen. And the beauty of how the homes look. Allowing this rule is going to absolutely take away from the look, the character, the vision of what a Gullah Geechee community should look like.”
Without the injunction, the Supreme Court’s decision could be moot.
“If by the time this case gets to the Georgia State Supreme Court, and by the time it gets to the court all these structures are built, then that really takes away the power of the court,” Watts said.
The county won’t be harmed by an injunction,but Hogg Hammock would be harmed if it’s not granted, Braun said.
“Our clients are harmed because they suffer the consequences of the whole nature of the community being changed,” he said.