Voters side with Gullah Geechee in Sapelo Island zoning referendum
Sapelo Island’s Gullah Geechee people won another round Tuesday in their bruising fight to preserve their heritage and culture on the Georgia barrier island.
What wasn’t determined via a referendum more than two years in the making was whether the ballot box victory is a knockout blow to the construction of large vacation homes.
McIntosh County voters repealed a 2023 zoning ordinance that opened the island, home to freed Black slaves and their descendants, to two-story, 3,000-square-foot houses. More than two dozen Gullah Geechee residents occupy modest dwellings of 1,400 square feet or less, such as cottages and mobile homes, in the community known as Hogg Hummock.
Several of those residents initiated the referendum in late 2023 under a rarely used clause in the Georgia constitution that gives citizens a path to overturn local government decisions. The Gullah Geechee collected more than 2,300 signatures to trigger the referendum and, after a legal challenge halted the special election, won a ruling from the state Supreme Court allowing the vote to proceed.
Tuesday’s special election drew nearly a quarter of the county’s more than 10,000 registered voters. Nearly 85% of them voted to overturn the 2023 zoning ordinance.
“I am definitely encouraged and grateful and proud of not only our community on Sapelo but the voters of McIntosh, thousands of who said we shouldn’t be trying to rezone our community but instead should be trying to protect it and our heritage and our culture and our people,” said Josiah “Jazz” Watts, a Gullah Geechee descendant. “The voters have spoken and they stand with the people of our community.”
The vote sets up a potential clash over what zoning laws, if any, now regulate the island. Lawyers for the Gullah Geechee assert the referendum repealed the action that changed the ordinance — a County Commission vote — and not the zoning itself, meaning the preexisting rules remain in place.
But Commission Chairwoman Kate Pontello Karwacki has argued the referendum results remove all development restrictions in Hogg Hummock. Karwacki spearheaded the introduction of a revised ordinance for passage ahead of the referendum, but public backlash over what one Gullah Geechee leader labeled “sneaky stuff” tanked that effort.
McIntosh Commissioners will address Sapelo’s zoning future in a special meeting scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday. An agenda posted in the county’s legal organ, The Darien News, states the commission will consider a moratorium “pertaining to certain activities on Sapelo” but does not offer details.
A moratorium on Sapelo building permits for homes larger than 1,400 square feet is already in effect in the form of a court injunction. Superior Court Judge Gary McCorvey issued that order in November 2024, saying that without it larger-scale development could move forward and render an eventual ordinance repeal “hollow.”
The referendum result does not void that injunction.
Watts said the meeting notice, while vague, is “a positive” and indicates the commissioners are ready to listen to Sapelo’s Gullah Geechee residents.
“It tells me they are ready to put something in place to pause everything and start to do the work that hasn’t been done,” Watts said. “It’s significant that they are taking the step. It definitely means something.”
Karwacki, the commission chairwoman, had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication late Tuesday.
At the January meeting, Commissioner Henderson Hope said settling Sapelo-related “hurdles” was one of his 2026 priorities.
“It’s a burden on the taxpayers and a burden on us, as commissioners,” he said.
McIntosh’s government has spent more than $500,000 defending its zoning change in court, according to records obtained and first reported by The Current, an online news outlet that covers the Georgia coast. In a 2024 court hearing, county officials estimated the cost of holding a special election for the referendum at more than $20,000.
About the Author
Adam Van Brimmer is a journalist who covers politics and Coastal Georgia news for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
