Vote to repeal Sapelo Island zoning law scheduled for January

Sapelo is a barrier island along Georgia’s coast located about halfway between Savannah and Brunswick. The Gullah Geechee make up the overwhelming majority of the island’s full-time residents and have lived in the unincorporated community of Hogg Hummock for generations. They are descendants of enslaved West Africans who worked Sapelo’s plantations before emancipation and the Civil War.

Probate Judge Harold Webster issued the special election order after being notified by the Georgia Supreme Court that its ruling would not be reconsidered. That cleared the way for the scheduling of the referendum.

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez/AJC

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez/AJC

A Sapelo Gullah Geechee community leader, Josiah “Jazz” Watts, did not immediately respond to comment. Neither did members of the McIntosh County Commission.

Some McIntosh residents who followed the case had speculated the commission would revise the ordinance after the Georgia Supreme Court’s ruling, making the special election unnecessary.

The Jan. 20 vote will end a nearly three-year-long saga over home sizes on Sapelo. For decades, a zoning ordinance that restricted homes to 1,600 square feet and one story in height limited development on the island. But a proposed revision was introduced in 2023, and a scaled-back version of the ordinance that allowed homes up to 3,000 square feet and two stories passed the McIntosh County Commission that September.

Credit: Justin Taylor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Credit: Justin Taylor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Ordinance opponents responded by collecting signature petitions to force a referendum. They met the qualification in July 2024, and the special election was called for October.

The McIntosh Commission filed suit to stop the referendum, and a Superior Court judge ruled in the county’s favor just days before the election — and after 818 voters had cast early ballots.

The ruling involved a state constitutional challenge, sending the case to the Georgia Supreme Court on appeal.

The justices heard the case in April. Oral arguments centered on whether the Georgia constitution’s Home Rule Provision allows citizens to attempt to repeal local government zoning decisions at the ballot box.

The case marked the second time in four years the state’s highest court heard arguments over citizen-led referendums.

The other came in 2022 over a County Commission real estate decision and involved a proposed spaceport in Camden County, located about 40 miles south of Sapelo along the coast.

In both instances, the justices ruled the repeal votes legal.