Judge asked to block slave descendants’ effort to force a vote on zoning of their Georgia community

SAVANNAH, Ga. — A Georgia county has asked a judge to block a referendum sought by residents of one of the South’s last remaining Gullah-Geechee communities of slave descendants, who are fighting to overturn zoning changes they fear could force them to sell their island homes.

Commissioners of coastal McIntosh County voted in September to roll back protections that have limited deveopment for decades in the tiny enclave of Hogg Hummock on Sapelo Island. About 30 to 50 Black residents still live in modest homes along dirt roads in the community, founded by formerly enslaved people who had worked on the plantation of Thomas Spalding.

Residents and their supporters on July 9 filed a petition with a local Probate Court judge seeking a referendum to put the zoning changes before county voters.

Attorneys for McIntosh County in a legal filing Monday asked a Superior Court judge to intervene and declare the referendum effort invalid. While Georgia’s constitution empowers citizens to repeal some county government actions by referendum, the lawyers argue that power doesn’t apply to zoning.

“The referendum election requested … would be illegal, and the results would be a nullity,” said the filing by Ken Jarrard, an attorney representing McIntosh County.

Jarrard asked a judge to expedite a hearing before the proposed referendum can proceed. The law gives Probate Court Judge Harold Webster 60 days to verify the petition’s signatures and decide whether to call a special election. Petition organizers hope for a vote this fall.

Black residents and landowners of Hogg Hummock, also known as Hog Hammock, are among the descendants of enslaved island populations in the South that became known as Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia.

Scattered along the Southeast coast from North Carolina to Florida, Gullah-Geechee communities have endured since the Civil War. Scholars say their separation from the mainland caused these slave descendants to retain much of their African heritage, from their unique dialect to skills and crafts such as cast-net fishing and weaving baskets.

Those remaining on Sapelo Island, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) south of Savannah, say they could be forced to sell land their families have held for generations if zoning changes that doubled the size of houses allowed in Hogg Hummock are left standing and lead to an increase in property taxes.

They’re challenging the new zoning ordinance in a lawsuit in addition to pursuing a referendum. Petition organizers say they collected more than 2,300 signatures, exceeding the required threshold of 20% of McIntosh County’s registered voters.

The Georgia Supreme Court last year upheld a 2022 referendum in nearby Camden County that opponents used to veto commissioners’ plans to build a launchpad for commercial rockets.

But attorneys for McIntosh County say Georgia’s referendum provision doesn’t apply to zoning.

They say that’s because Georgia’s constitution states that referendum results are invalid if they clash with other constitutional provisions or with state law. Georgia gives counties and cities sole authority over zoning, they say, and state law specifies the process for adopting and repealing zoning ordinances.

Jarrard made the same arguments in a letter last week to the probate judge considering the referendum petition. But the state Supreme Court’s ruling last year found that Georgia’s constitution doesn’t authorize a county government or anyone else to challenge a referendum in Probate Court.

Dana Braun, an attorney for the referendum organizers, did not immediately return an email message seeking comment. In a response letter to the probate judge on Friday, Braun argued a referendum challenging Hogg Hummock’s zoning would be legal. He wrote that the argument opposing it by McIntosh County lawyers “misreads the Georgia Constitution.”