SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Voters in a coastal Georgia county Tuesday rejected an ordinance allowing large homes on remote Sapelo Island, where Black landowners feared the change could saddle them with unaffordable property taxes in one of the South’s few remaining Gullah-Geechee communities founded by freed slaves.
The referendum organized by island residents succeeded in overriding McIntosh County commissioners’ 2023 decision to double the size of homes allowed in the tiny Hogg Hummock community.
Unofficial returns Tuesday night showed roughly 85% of voters who cast ballots voted for the referendum, according to figures from Doll Gale, the county’s elections supervisor. Only about 19% of the county’s 10,000 registered voters turned out.
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