LISTEN: Responding to a lawsuit filed by Black property owners, McIntosh County denied wrongdoing in its decision to allow the construction of larger homes on Sapelo Island. GPB's Benjamin Payne reports.
A state judge has scheduled a February hearing on a motion filed by the McIntosh County Board of Commissioners to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its controversial vote to rezone a historically Gullah Geechee neighborhood on Sapelo Island.
In a response to the suit filed by a group of Black property owners on Hogg Hummock, the McIntosh County Board of Commissioners denied any wrongdoing in its decision to allow the construction of homes as large as 3,000 square feet, up from the previous limit of 1,400 square feet.
The plaintiffs claim that the rezoning constitutes racial discrimination because, through increased property taxes, it will price them out of the land where their enslaved West African ancestors were forced to work.
The county denies this, along with other claims by the plaintiffs that their constitutional rights were violated, including that the county violated due process by limiting public participation in the rezoning process.
The county also denied that it prohibited the public from bringing recording devices such as cellphones to two public meetings in September of the McIntosh County Planning and Zoning Board concerning the rezoning, as well as from the Sept. 12 meeting of the Board of Commissioners, in which the rezoning was passed by a 3-2 vote.
The public was, in fact, prohibited by the McIntosh County Sheriff's Office from bringing recording devices to these public meetings — a violation of Georgia's open meetings law. Reporters were also prohibited from bringing their devices to the two Planning and Zoning Board meetings; they were only allowed to bring in their cellphones to the Sept. 12 Board of Commissioners meeting.
McIntosh County Superior Court Judge Jay Stewart has scheduled a hearing for Feb. 20 on a motion by the county to dismiss the lawsuit.
