New vacation homes won’t be constructed amid the modest cottages and other dwellings of Sapelo Island’s Hog Hammock — at least not yet.
A Superior Court judge granted an injunction Monday against a 14-month-old zoning ordinance change that allows for larger houses on the Georgia island, which is home to the last intact Gullah Geechee community on the coast. The Gullah Geechee are descendants of enslaved people brought to Sapelo in the mid-1800s to work the island’s plantations.
The ruling halts the issuance of building permits needed to build new residences larger than 1,400 square feet and to expand existing homes beyond that size. A final determination is likely months away.
Judge Gary McCorvey signed the order Monday over the objections of the attorneys for the McIntosh County Commission, which crafted the ordinance. They argue that the injunction request effectively asked the court to “step into the shoes of the Board of Commissioners by placing a moratorium on enforcement of its Hog Hammock zoning ordinance.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
McCorvey’s decision comes less than six weeks after he blocked a voter referendum that aimed to repeal the zoning change. Early voting in that election was already underway, and McCorvey’s decision halted voting six days before final ballots were to be cast.
Attorneys for Hog Hammock residents, known as the Gullah Geechee, have filed a motion to appeal the decision to stop the election, with the case likely headed to the Georgia Supreme Court. With no date yet set for the Supreme Court to consider the case, the attorneys — Savannah lawyers Dana Braun and Philip Thompson — filed for the injunction last week.
“This process has some unpredictability to it” in regards to timing, Thompson said Wednesday. “The injunction is necessary to protect our clients, the rest of the Hog Hammock residents and the McIntosh County residents who signed petitions to put the ordinance on the ballot. This protects their right to a referendum.”
The uncertain timeline was central to McCorvey’s decision to issue the injunction. Without the court-ordered moratorium, the ordinance would allow development that could transform the character of the island, Sapelo residents say, pointing to the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation listing Hog Hammock among its “Places in Peril” for 2024.
The judge noted that should permits to construct or expand homes under the ordinance guidelines be issued and the Georgia Supreme Court then rule that the voter referendum seeking to repeal the law move forward, “a victory in the Supreme Court would be hollow indeed, tantamount to closing the barn door after all the horses had escaped.”
Four building permits were issued between the ordinance’s approval by the McIntosh County Commission in September 2023 and McCorvey’s signing of the injunction order, although only one was for new construction of a home larger than 1,400 square feet. The ordinance change increased the maximum size of homes on Sapelo from 1,400 square feet to 3,000 and allowed a second story.
Credit: Brian Brown/Vanishing Georgia
Credit: Brian Brown/Vanishing Georgia
Sapelo residents named as petitioners in the court case did not respond to requests for interviews about the injunction. The island’s Gullah Geechee continue to wrestle with the trauma of last month’s ferry dock collapse during the annual Cultural Day celebration. Seven visitors died in the accident.
Jazz Watts, a community leader who has led the referendum efforts, told coastal Georgia news outlet The Current that McCorvey’s granting of the injunction was “only right.” Another Sapelo resident, Peter Campbell, said he is eager for the state Supreme Court to “finalize” the case and end the fight over the zoning ordinance.
The wait for a state Supreme Court ruling could be a long one. The case file remains in Superior Court and will be forwarded to the high court once all administrative duties, such as the finalization of hearing transcripts, are complete. That process can take months.
The case is then sent to the appeals court — the state Supreme Court in this case. The high court operates on a three-terms-per-year calendar, and scheduling often depends on volume. Once the case is placed on the court docket, the state Constitution requires the justices to resolve it either that same term or before the end of the next term.
The state Supreme Court has considered only one previous case involving citizen-led voter referendums meant to overturn local legislation. That appeal involved a vote over the proposed Camden spaceport and took 20 months to be resolved, starting with a Superior Court decision and ending with the state Supreme Court’s ruling.
The high court sided with those behind the referendum in the Camden case, leading to a repeal of a county commission decision involving a land purchase for the spaceport. The project has since been abandoned.
The same attorneys litigating the Sapelo appeal, Braun and Thompson, handled the Camden case and made similar arguments in both: that the home rule provision of the Georgia Constitution allows citizens to challenge local legislative decisions via referendum.
In the Sapelo case, McCorvey ruled that the provision does not apply to zoning changes because property standards are addressed in another part of the state Constitution. The judge acknowledged during a hearing on the case that he anticipated his decision would be appealed to the state Supreme Court because of its similarities to the Camden lawsuit.
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