Glynn County has released a second draft of its zoning ordinances, gutting many of the lighting restrictions intended to update protections for sea turtles nesting on nearby beaches.
The zoning changes are in the process of being codified this spring after months of debate by a committee largely made up of real estate developers and architects. Pro-environment wording had been drafted earlier this year after the Georgia Department of Natural Resources warned the county that artificial lighting on its beaches could be disorienting baby sea turtles that, in search of the ocean, instinctively head toward the brightest point in the sky. On undeveloped beaches, that point is the moon’s reflection on the water, but when artificial lights are present, the hatchlings sometimes head toward them.
Yet between December 2025 and February 2026, that wording has been erased from the draft document expected to be voted on by Glynn County Commissioners this spring.
Courtlyn Cook, member of the Island Planning Commission and chair of the Glynn County GOP, said that the draft changes to modify lighting ordinances were too restrictive to property owners. Homeowners, she said, shouldn’t be restricted to “red lights and orange lights,” referring to the high-wavelength light considered best practice for protecting sea turtles.
“At some point, we have to think about the fact that there might be an oceanfront homeowner who has recently renovated their house, and they plan on keeping this house in their family,” Cook said. “Their children are probably going to want to renovate and update it, and then they’re going to be punished and have to do these red lights and orange lights.”
Catherine Ridley, Director of the St. Simons Island Sea Turtle Project and Vice President of Communications for One Hundred Miles, is alarmed by the changed wording. The text in the draft ordinance previously reported on by The Current GA represented seven years of negotiations, she said.
“If this ordinance passes the way it is, we’ll not only be repeating the problems that we have had the last seven years, but we’ll also be losing the same turtles needlessly, killing turtles in Glynn County year after year, as we have been,” Ridley said. “We’ll be in a far worse position, and I can’t imagine that this is their intent, but suddenly there will cease to be not just a beachfront lighting ordinance, but an exterior lighting ordinance that applies to any existing property owners across the County.”
Pleasing both sides
Robert Ussery, a local architect and member of the working group advising on changes to the ordinance rewrite, said the group was tasked with amending light ordinances while trying to please two constituencies: turtle advocates and beachfront property owners, in an interview with The Current GA.
Ussery added that throughout the process, turtle advocates have “dominated” the discussions, and that only recently have they begun to hear concerns from beachfront property owners.
“I think what happened is, once we released the draft, not the one that they saw last, but the one, the one prior to that, was, people started actually reading the zoning ordinance. And of all the things, the turtle lights have become the kind of whipping post, if you will, of the things that people are focused on,” Ussery said.
Ussery, speaking at a joint planning commission meeting on Feb. 23, said that since both sides are upset about the current wording, his commission must have struck a good balance.
“I think the direction that the county commission sort of gave us in the beginning is, let’s not step on too many toes. We all have to live here, and we’d rather, you know, make the changes, and at the same time, you know, make it easy for people to comply, and so that’s where we are,” Ussery said.
Grandfathering in
One of the more significant updates to the ordinance clarifies a grandfather clause that allows property owners who are not conforming with the new ordinance to keep their lights if they meet the current code.
The current county code has not been updated since 1984, although many other beach communities along the East Coast have updated their ordinances to meet the needs of the changed environment. Jekyll Island, which is also in Glynn County but owned by the state, has had an updated sea turtle ordinance in place since 2008.
Credit: Justin Taylor/The Current GA/CatchLight Local
Ridley says that was one reason that her organizations, as well as the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, have been pushing for more pragmatic changes in light ordinances. She compared protecting Georgia’s turtles to protecting human infants.
“Understand that as technology advances and as we learn more, we update our laws,” she said. The law today mandates that I put my young children in far safer car seats than what I rode around in 40-plus years ago, and that’s for good reason. So, with beachfront lighting, one big piece that’s been missing from the current 1980s-era ordinance is what we call the quality or wavelength of light.”
She added that a simple solution is to require that any light visible from the beach to an observer use a long-wavelength bulb. The wavelength should be at least 560 nanometers.
That wording is not reflected in the current draft ordinances. Only residents who make alterations or renovations to their property would be required to comply with the new ordinance.
Ussery said that the clause will slowly bring conformity to the new standards.
“Those beachfront properties are being changed quite often. So every time they change something or make an addition or modification, they have to comply. Those properties sell frequently. So, my guess is it’s sort of a timing issue. I think eventually they’ll all be in compliance. It’s just going to take a little time,” he said.
Ridley worries that would not happen in reality. She said that the new draft wording would only apply to new construction.
“It leaves no mechanism, no tools for us to address non-compliant beachfront lighting that is already in place. And so if that existing lighting doesn’t even meet the current standards, we on the beach have no authority. The county has no authority. DNR has no authority to require corrections unless you know at some point in the future, the property owner undertakes new construction or makes modifications,” she said.
How bad is the problem?
Ussery said it is unlikely that the environmentalists’ concerns will carry more weight. He said that they have asked the county to enforce the current code and make the grandfather clause active now.
“So I don’t know that we can necessarily force people to change things that are currently compliant,” he said. “By and large, the entire ordinance is set up in such a way that if you’re compliant now, you can stay legal, but non-compliant.”
He added that he has asked turtle advocates several times if it is possible to go and do an assessment of where the issues are.
“It’d be nice to know, hey, this, this property right here, is a problem, and this is why it’s a problem. But so far, we haven’t gotten anything like that,” Ussery said.
Ridley mentioned that while she has good relationships with people on the committee and acknowledges the hard work it takes, they are not lighting experts and are approaching it from the perspectives of developers and real estate agents.
Ridley said that casual observers on a beach walk on St. Simons or Sea Island can see that the majority of properties are out of compliance. She said that researchers have provided rates at which turtles are getting misoriented.
Sea Island has one of the highest misorientation rates in Georgia, about double the statewide average. Over the past few years, researchers have documented between 22% or 23% of nests with significant misorientations. That’s more than one in five nests where significant numbers of hatchlings never make it into the ocean.
“I don’t know how to make the problem any more clear than we have by relying on the data that shows the misorientation rates, which plots those across Sea Island and across St Simons,” Ridley said.
The road ahead
Cook, of the Island Planning Commission, said she does not see a reason to change codes that she says will be a burden on oceanfront homeowners, people who already pay the highest property taxes in the county.
“I do not see any justification for a massive change, given that statistically, you can look up the turtles have been increasing in population over the past 30 years. So if what we have been doing is working, then it does not justify a massive change.”
While turtle populations have been increasing in the Southeast, only one nest was recorded on St. Simons Island in 2025. Overall, the county saw 307 sea turtle nests on its beaches last year. Conservationists say the species’ increasing success in Georgia is a result of a multifaceted, decades-long effort, including the introduction of devices that prevent adult sea turtles from drowning in shrimp nets.
“Our turtle teams are working our tails off to do everything that we can all summer long. And it’s not enough. We don’t have the tools we need,” Ridley said. “I can go door to door, I can talk to the property owners, and if there isn’t a clear, effective ordinance in place. Someone forgets, and they leave a backdoor light on, or a tourist comes in from Kentucky, and they flip a switch that they don’t know about, and suddenly we’ve lost an entire nest worth of turtles that we’ve worked all season to protect.”
There will be a public hearing on March 18, and another public hearing is planned for April as the county moves closer to final consideration.
“It’s not a good look for Glynn County that we’re still stuck in the 1980s. We can’t, or I would argue that we shouldn’t, put sea turtles up on our billboards and in our magazine ads, and then just look the other way when they’re actively being harmed,” Ridley said.
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