Sapelo zoning effort stalls

At a packed meeting in Darien on Tuesday, the McIntosh County Planning and Zoning Commission tabled consideration of new zoning for the Hogg Hummock neighborhood of Sapelo Island that would have capped house size at 1,800 square feet and 35 feet tall.

The unanimous vote to set aside the controversial zoning came after almost a dozen residents spoke against it, and the county attorney urged the board and the county commission to “go back to the drawing board.”

The McIntosh County Commission last month agreed on the new limits in Hogg Hummock — one of the last intact communities of the descendants of enslaved West Africans known as the Gullah Geechee — at a special called meeting in which at least one commissioner said they discussed the zoning in a closed door meeting, a possible violation of Georgia’s open meeting law.

That apparent misstep was just the latest in the zoning battle that stretches back to September 2023, when the commission approved the construction of 3,000 square foot houses up to 37 feet tall. Longtime residents feared the resulting gentrification and the higher taxes that accompanied it would drive them out of their ancestral homes in favor of wealthy developers.

What followed includes several lawsuits, a petition drive to force a referendum, a special election that was aborted mid-vote, a decision from the Georgia Supreme Court to allow the referendum and ultimately 85% of voters choosing to overturn the 2023 zoning. That January referendum revoked zoning but did not put any zoning in its place. The county commission has struggled to replace the zoning ever since.

Opposition speaks out

Nearly 80 people attended the meeting Tuesday at the Board of Education transportation and maintenance facility. The five commissioners sat in school desks at the front of the increasingly warm room and residents overflowed into the hallway at the back.

In a more than hourlong hearing before the vote, Gullah Geechee descendants and their supporters spoke in opposition to the proposed zoning.

Sapelo Island resident and Gullah-Geechee descendant Reginald Hall was up first. An often fiery speaker, his voice broke with emotion Tuesday. He read from a 1995 document calling for the preservation of Hogg Hummock with “low intensity residential development and cottage style industry” to prevent “land value increase, which could force the removal of the indigenous population.”

“Do we just get forced off of this island and forgotten about, or do we take some care, some nurture in a pattern of development that could save or allow our survival?” he asked.

After years of fighting for the Hogg Hummock community all Hall wants is peace, he said.

“Peace coming through the way that you build a house — you can’t tell me that’s too much to ask,” he said. “And then to have the ability to come to the island and nurture the culture that creates the economic development for the county. And I know I dream big; this could be the gem of the Southeast coast and we all benefit, all of us in many ways.”

Josiah “Jazz” Watts, another descendant and island resident, pointed out the strangeness in the proposed zoning’s fine print including provisions for a gymnasium or health spa or riding stables with a special use permit.

“So I don’t even know how that got in there,” said Watts, who was formerly with the nonprofit advocacy group One Hundred Miles. “I would honestly like to know, because whoever got that in there, they got a secret pathway that we in the community don’t know about, because we are fighting like crazy to talk to the commission and get things added in, and we don’t get anything in.”

Megan Desrosiers, the executive director of One Hundred Miles, pointed to a loophole in the language of the zoning that could result in the construction of guest homes larger than 1,800 square feet allowed for primary dwellings.

“That goes against what you’re trying to do, in my opinion, with this ordinance,” she told the commission. “The way to resolve the issue is to also put a size limitation on accessory dwelling units, and/or reduce the total number of improved services allowed on the lot.”

Eunice Moore, an 87-year-old Gullah Geechee descendant and Darien resident, came to the meeting in a colorful African print dress and head wrap. She warned of the tangible consequences of losing the island’s heritage.

“If we don’t comply with some of these things, the grants and the different things that we request for support as we go down the road and make requests, we will not be able to get any of them, because we are taking the history from our city and our county,” she said.

Small, rural McIntosh County has spent more than half a million dollars in legal fees related to the Hogg Hummock zoning. Sapelo resident Andy Desmond warned the county was setting itself up for more litigation.

“Buzzard attorneys will be flying all over the carcass of McIntosh County if we keep up this craziness,” he said. “It’s just begging to be in the national spotlight for all of the wrong reasons.”

‘Pull the item’

County Attorney Ad Poppell had possible litigation on his mind, too. In a memo dated July 2 that was shared at the meeting, he recommended the county “pull the item from both agendas and go back to the drawing board.”

The memo explained that the allowable square footage “under roof” combined with the allowable roof height could result in homes with 2,900 square feet of floor space.

“This, in my opinion, will insure addition litigation and possibly recall petitions on the remaining three commissioners,” he wrote.

Building and Zoning Administrator Bryan Boone warned against adopting the zoning as proposed.

“I think it’s apparent that there are mechanical deficiencies in the current draft, and primarily the result of that is it lacks the necessary constraints to prevent structures that are larger than what the stakeholders expected,” Boone told the board. “So because of those loopholes, the draft fails to achieve a core stakeholder objective, and it’s the position of staff at Building and Zoning in McIntosh County that the board should not send this proposal to the county commission with its recommendation or approval.”

With that, the board voted unanimously to table the zoning as presented.

The McIntosh County Commission was planning to vote on the measure at its July 14 meeting. With no recommendation from planning and zoning, it’s unclear what the next move is.