Judge blocks larger home permits for tiny community of slave descendants pending appeal

SAVANNAH, Ga. — A judge has blocked a Georgia county from approving larger homes in a small island community of descendants of black slaves until the state’s highest court decides whether residents can challenge it through a referendum. zoning plan changes They fear that this will lead to unaffordable tax increases.

Hogg Hummock on Sapelo Island was founded after the Civil War by slaves who worked on Thomas Spalding’s cotton plantation. It is one of the few remaining communities of people in the South, known as Gullah-Geechee, whose isolation from the mainland resulted in a unique culture with deep ties to Africa.

The several dozen black residents who remained on the island of Georgia have spent the past year fighting local officials in McIntosh County over a new zoning ordinance. Commissioners voted in September 2023 to double the number of homes allowed in Hogg Hummock, loosening development restrictions put in place nearly three decades earlier to protect the shrinking community of modest homes along dirt roads.

Residents and their advocates sought to repeal the zoning changes under a rarely used provision in Georgia’s constitution that gives citizens the power to call special elections to challenge local laws. They spent months collecting more than 1,800 petition signatures and a referendum was scheduled for October 1.

McIntosh County commissioners filed suit to stop the vote. Senior Judge Gary McCorvey stopped the days of the referendum before the scheduled elections and after hundreds of votes were cast early. He sided with the commissioners’ argument that zoning ordinances cannot be overturned by voters.

Residents of Hogg Hummock are appealing the judge’s ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court, hoping to revive and reschedule the referendum.

On Monday, McCorvey granted their request to block county officials from approving new building permits and permit applications under the new zoning ordinance until the state Supreme Court rules on the case.

The new zoning law increased the maximum size of dwellings allowed in Hogg Hummock to 278 square feet of total enclosed space. The previous limit was 130 square meters of heated, air-conditioned space.

Residents say bigger homes in their small community would lead to higher property taxes, increasing pressure to sell land held in their families for generations.

McCorvey said in his ruling Monday that residents of Hogg Hummock have a “chance of success” to appeal his decision to cancel the referendum, and that allowing larger homes in the island community before the case is decided will cause irreversible damage can cause.

“A Supreme Court victory would indeed be hollow, tantamount to closing a stable door after all the horses had escaped,” the judge wrote.

Attorneys for McIntosh County argued it is wrong to block an ordinance passed more than a year ago. Under court order, new building permits will have to comply with the previous, stricter size limits.

Less than a month after the Hogg Hummock zoning referendum was scrapped, Sapelo Island was hit with a unrelated tragedy.

Hundreds of tourists were visiting the island on October 19 when a walkway collapsed at the state-run ferry port. murder seven people. It happened as Hogg Hummock celebrated its annual Cultural Day festival, a day intended to be a joyful respite from worries about the community’s uncertain future.

The Georgia Supreme Court has not yet scheduled when it will hear the Sapelo Island case. The court last year upheld a 2022 citizen referendum that blocked coastal Camden County from building a commercial spaceport.

The spaceport vote was based on a provision in the Georgian constitution that allows organizers to force special elections to challenge “local laws or ordinances, resolutions or regulations” of local governments if they get a petition signed by 10% up to 25%, depending on the population. of the voters of a province.

In the Sapelo Island case, McCorvey ruled that voters cannot call a special election to veto zoning ordinances because they are governed by a different part of the state constitution.

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