Judge asked to cancel referendum in slave descendants' zoning battle with Georgia county

DARIEN, Ga. — Elected commissioners of a Georgia county who rolled back development restrictions protecting one of the South's last Gullah-Geechee communities of Black slave descendants asked a judge Friday to stop an Oct. 1 referendum that gives voters a chance to overturn those changes.

More than 600 voters in coastal McIntosh County have already cast ballots in the special election since early voting began Sept. 9. But voting could come to a sudden stop if Senior Judge Gary McCorvey agrees with commissioners that Georgia's constitution doesn't allow voters to override local zoning ordinances.

Ken Jerrard, an attorney for the county officials, asked the judge at a Friday hearing to “save McIntosh County from being forced to fund an illegal election.”

Residents of the tiny Hogg Hummock community on Sapelo Island, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) south of Savannah, and their supporters spent months collecting more than 1,800 petition signatures to force a referendum that they hope will undo zoning changes commissioners approved a year ago.

Those changes doubled the size of homes allowed in the tiny island enclave, weakening protections adopted decades earlier to protect its Black landowners. Residents fear larger homes would lead to increased property taxes that would pressure some to sell land held by their families since their enslaved ancestors were freed during the Civil War.

“It's eventually going to force people off the island because they can't afford to live there,” said Yvonne Grovner, who moved to Hogg Hummock four decades ago when she married a Sapelo Island descendant. “So we're hoping we can get it reversed. We don't want these big houses being built.”

Grovner cast an early ballot to overturn the zoning changes Friday morning on her way to the courthouse after arriving on the mainland from Sapelo Island by ferry.

Roughly 30 to 50 Black residents live in Hogg Hummock, a community of dirt roads and modest homes founded by former slaves from the cotton plantation of Thomas Spalding.

Small communities descended from enslaved island populations in the South — known as Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia — are scattered along the coast from North Carolina to Florida, Scholars say their separation from the mainland caused these people to retain much of their African heritage, from their unique dialect to skills and crafts such as cast-net fishing and weaving baskets.

A lawsuit by the commissioners argues that, although Georgia's constitution allows for special elections to challenge some decisions of local governments, that power doesn't apply to zoning. Jerrard said zoning powers are spelled out in a different section of Georgia's constitution, and Georgia law defines specific procedures for repealing zoning ordinances that don't include special elections.

The judge seemed inclined to agree.

“You've got a high hill to climb to convince me that zoning is subject to this,” McCorvey told lawyers for the island residents and the Probate Court judge who ordered the election.

McCorvey said he might rule as soon as Monday.

Attorneys for the Hogg Hummock residents and Probate Court Judge Harold Webster urged McCorvey to dismiss the county's lawsuit, arguing commissioners have no legal standing to challenge a special election that Webster had legal authority to order. Any legitimate court challenge to halt the referendum would have to come from voters, said Kellye Moore, Webster's attorney.

“If there are any voters out there who think this is wrong and a waste of taxpayer dollars, those people should come forward,” Moore told the judge.

Both sides pointed to a Georgia Supreme Court decision last year that upheld another county's 2022 referendum that blocked officials' plans to build a launchpad for commercial rockets.

Jerrard noted that case was brought before the state Supreme Court by commissioners of Camden County. The fact that the court heard the case and ruled on its merits, he said, proves commissioners have legal standing to challenge special elections.

Moore pointed out that one Georgia justice who wrote a separate, concurring opinion in the spaceport case wrote that special elections might be used to challenge “zoning ordinances and decisions, taxation rates, and budgeting decisions.”

In addition to trying to overturn the county's zoning changes by referendum, Hogg Hummock residents have filed a separate lawsuit accusing county officials of race discrimination and violating their due process rights.

Residents said they were blindsided when the county in August 2023 unveiled a proposal to weaken restrictions on development within Hogg Hummock adopted nearly three decades earlier with the stated intent to help its Black residents hold onto their land. Less than a month later, commissioners voted to double the maximum size of homes allowed in the community.