Sapelo zoning referendum date set for Oct. 1 as county files suit

Caption

Josiah "Jazz" Watts holds copies of the petitions with signatures requesting a referendum to repeal the new zoning ordinance affecting Hogg Hummock on Sapelo Island.

Credit: Susan Catron/The Current GA

Mary Landers, The Current

McIntosh County voters are scheduled for a countywide vote on the single issue of Hogg Hummock zoning on Oct. 1, 2024, even as the county heads to court to prevent the referendum from taking place.

Probate Court Judge Harold Webster issued the order on Tuesday to schedule the election. The question to be put to voters will be: “Shall the Action of the Board of Commissioners of McIntosh County, Georgia, amending the McIntosh County Code of Ordinances Appendix C Sec. 219 HH Hog Hammock District of the McIntosh County Zoning Ordinance be repealed?”

(Read the scheduling order here.)

Election Supervisor Elenore Gale and Attorney Jason A. Nix verified Monday that a petition filed last month in probate court met the signature threshold to force a county-wide vote on a controversial zoning change on Sapelo Island’s Hogg Hummock. That same day, McIntosh County filed a challenge to the petition in McIntosh County Superior Court asking the court to compel Webster to quash the process. 

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A home in Hogg Hummock – Sapelo Island.

Credit: Brian Brown/Vanishing Georgia

The Hogg Hummock area is inhabited by descendants of formerly enslaved West Africans and is the last Saltwater/Gullah Geechee community on a Georgia barrier island. The county commission approved zoning changes on Sapelo in September over the objections of residents who packed the meeting.  The new zoning allows bigger, taller houses, which residents fear will force out Sapelo descendants in favor of wealthy developers. ​

In response, Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society SICARS, the Hog Hammock Community Foundation, Save our Legacy Ourself (SOLO), and One Hundred Miles  joined as “Keep Sapelo Geechee” to launch a petition drive in September. The petitioners based their actions on the “Home Rule” provision of the state constitutionthat outlines a process for voters to repeal county resolutions, starting with a petition.

Josiah “Jazz” Watts, a community leader who also works on environmental justice issues for One Hundred Miles, is looking forward to going to the polls on Oct. 1.

“I’m glad we have a date for the special election,” he said. It’s a shame we have to go through this. The county could’ve reversed what they’ve done.”

Gale and Nix spelled out in their letter how the signatures met the required threshold. (Read the letter here.)

“Pursuant to the Georgia Constitution, petitioners were required to provide 1,765 signatures,” Gale and Nix wrote. “This number is based on 20% of total active registered voters in McIntosh County 2022 General Election (8,824).

“After a careful review, we have determined that petitioners have submitted 1,834 signatures that meet all requirements required pursuant to law. As such it appears that petitioners have met the requirements for the granting of their petition for the court to call a special election. Such a determination is constitutionally reserved to your honor.”

Gale said her office rejected duplicate signatures, illegible petitions, nicknames, unsigned petitions or ones that came from voters registered in another county. They checked each signature against the state’s voter registration system.

Webster wasted little time in calling for the election, though the date he chose was the latest possible under Georgia’s election laws. The date of the election must be 60 to 90 days after the petition is filed. Because elections must fall on a Tuesday, that put the latest possible date for a referendum at Tuesday Oct. 1, with a required week of early voting beforehand. 

On Monday, McIntosh County challenged the voters’ petition process with a filing in McIntosh County Superior Court. Representing the county, Cumming-based Attorney Ken Jarrard asked the court to compel Probate Judge Harold Webster to refrain from advancing the petition and referendum process. (Read McIntosh County’s filing here.) He also asked the Superior Court to declare the referendum petition invalid under the Home Rule provision of the Georgia Constitution. 

“McIntosh County does not believe a referendum may lawfully be used to repeal a zoning ordinance,” he wrote in an email to The Current. “The County’s legal position is fully set forth in its recently filed lawsuit.”

McIntosh’s filing reiterates the arguments Jarrard set forth in a letter to Webster dated July 15, 2024. The Hogg Hummock petitioners objected to that letter as inappropriate in their own letter to Webster. 

Watts, himself a Sapelo descendant, said the zoning board continues to approve large houses in Hogg Hammock, despite the petition and a pending lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

“We can go through all this, but what good is it going to be if (Hogg Hummock) is overrun with structures over 1,400 (square feet)?” Watts said. 

McIntosh’s path to a referendum mirrors that of Camden County’s in 2022. Camden citizens petitioned for a vote to weigh in on a spaceport project many considered a boondoggle. Like McIntosh, Camden also sued its probate judge to stop the process. But the petitioners ultimately prevailed, voting by a nearly 3-1 margin to reverse the county’s decision to buy land for the spaceport, and winning a subsequent Georgia Supreme Court case. 

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with The Current.