County commissioners in Georgia are asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit by Black residents descended from slaves who fear new zoning changes will force them to sell their island homes in one of the South’s last surviving Gullah-Geechee communities.
Residents and landowners of the tiny Hogg Hummock community sued in October after McIntosh County commissioners voted to weaken zoning restrictions that for decades helped protect the enclave of modest homes along dirt roads on largely unspoiled Sapelo Island.
The zoning changes doubled the size of houses allowed in Hogg Hummock. Black residents say larger homes in the community will lead to property tax increases that they won’t be able to afford. Their lawsuit asks a judge to declare the new law discriminates “on the basis of race, and that it is therefore unconstitutional, null, and void.”
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