DARIEN, Ga. — Voters in McIntosh County will have a referendum this month to decide whether to repeal an ordinance that allows houses to more than double in size on Sapelo Island.
That ordinance sparked controversy in 2023 when county commissioners voted to permit homes of up to 3,000 square feet in one of the nation’s last intact Gullah-Geechee communities.
Critics say the zoning would bring in vacation houses for the rich, boosting property taxes and pricing the natives off their ancestral land.
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“What’s afoot with this referendum is an effort to erase, to eliminate the Gullah-Geechee community here that’s been a story of survival for 200 years,” Andy Desmond, a newcomer to the island and advocate for the Gullah-Geechee, told Channel 2’s Bryan Mims.
The Gullah-Geechee are direct descendants of slaves who worked on plantations along the coast from North Carolina to Florida.
After the Civil War, 44 families of freed slaves who worked on Sapelo Island acquired land and continued to live here.
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Fewer than 50 descendants remain on the island, living in modest houses and mobile homes in a 434-acre community called Hogg Hammock.
To protect the historic culture of Hogg Hammock, a zoning rule took effect in the 1990s limiting homes to 1,400 square feet of heated and cooled space. But in a 3-to-2 vote, McIntosh County commissioners allowed houses of up to 3,000 square feet of enclosed space.
“It’ll change it, it’ll definitely change the whole community,” J.R. Grovner, said. Grovner grew up in Hogg Hammock and now leads tours of Sapelo Island, which is only accessible by ferry. “Higher taxes will force people to move off of the island because people won’t be able to afford to pay their taxes.”
Desmond told Channel 2 Action News that the ordinance was a land-and-money grab.
“Wow, there’s all of this great beauty, all surrounding this community, and it can ours if we can just drive out the damn Geechee,” Desmond said.
The ordinance led to lawsuits, which led Sapelo’s Gullah-Geechee and their advocacy groups to the state supreme court.
In September, the justices ruled that the residents of McIntosh County have the right to a referendum on the ordinance.
Now signs with “Vote Yes!” and “Keep Sapelo Geechee” have sprouted across the county as residents are set to vote January 20 on whether to repeal the ordinance.
Citing mediation with the Gullah-Geechee and environmental groups, county commissioner Davis Poole, who voted for the new zoning rule, said he could not comment on ordinance and referendum now.
But at the time it passed, he and a fellow commissioner said the island’s Black landowners had sold off roughly half of their lots.
To stop unwanted new houses and outsiders, they said, the Gullah-Geechee should stop selling the land.
They also said the 1,400-square-foot rule for heated-and-cooled space was unenforceable and an updated ordinance was needed.
During the 2023 meeting, commissioners said the zoning change would not destroy the Gullah-Geechee culture and would prevent mansions from getting built.
Parthenia Myers works at on old general store-turned-artisan market in Hogg Hammock. She grows and sells the kind of herbs her ancestors grew on the island.
That close-to-the-land ethos, she said, needs to be protected.
“Having this heritage, having this legacy of being great stewards of the earth, it’s a whole lot to be proud of,” Myers said.
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