Two weeks after local officials weakened restrictions that for decades protected a tiny Georgia island community populated by slaves’ descendants, its Black residents hope to force a referendum that would give them the chance to override the zoning changes.
Hogg Hummock, a group of modest homes along dirt roads on largely unspoiled Sapelo Island, is one of the South’s few surviving Gullah-Geechee communities. Residents vowed to fight after McIntosh County commissioners Sept. 12 doubled the size of homes allowed in the community, stoking fears that wealthy buyers would build large houses that would cause taxes to rise and force Black landowners to sell.
Hogg Hummock residents and their supporters launched a petition drive Tuesday aimed at forcing a referendum on the zoning changes. They need to collect an estimated 2,200 signatures from registered voters in the county to put the issue on a future ballot.
“We’re trying to get this done quickly as possible,” said Maurice Bailey, a Hogg Hummock native whose group Save Our Legacy Ourself is helping lead the petition drive. “People will start getting discouraged and people will start selling land. Taxes won’t go up immediately, but they will start going up.”
The Georgia Constitution allows citizens to call special elections to make “amendments to or repeals of (county) ordinances, resolutions, or regulations.” Residents must first collect petition signatures from 10% to 25% of a county’s registered voters, depending on its population.
Though the provision has rarely been used, opponents of a proposed rocket launchpad in coastal Camden County succeeded last year in rejecting the project at the ballot box after local officials spent a decade and more than $11 million on it. In Atlanta, activists are trying the same tactic in hopes of halting construction of a police and firefighter training center that critics call “Cop City.”
Sapelo Island residents rolled out a website this…
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