DARIEN, GA. (AP)
— Descendants of enslaved people living on a Georgia island vowed to keep fighting Tuesday after county commissioners voted to double the maximum size of homes allowed in their tiny en- clave, which residents fear will accelerate the decline of one of the South’s few surviving Gullah-Geechee communities.
Black residents of the Hogg Hummock community on Sapelo Island and their supporters packed a meeting of McIntosh County’s elected commissioners to oppose zoning changes that residents say favor wealthy buyers and will lead to tax increases that could pressure them to sell their land.
Regardless, commissioners voted 3-2 to weaken zoning restrictions the county adopted nearly three decades ago with the stated intent to help Hogg Hummock’s 30 to 50 residents hold on to their land.
Yolanda Grovner, 54, of Atlanta, said she has long planned to retire on land her father, an island native, owns in Hogg Hummock. She left the county courthouse Tuesday night, wondering if that will ever happen.
“It’s going to be very, very difficult,” Grovner said. She added: “I think this is their way of pushing residents off the island.”
Hogg Hummock is one of just a few surviving communities in the South of people known as Gullah, or Geechee, in Georgia, whose ancestors worked island slave plantations.
Fights with the local government are nothing new to residents and landowners. Dozens successfully appealed staggering property tax hikes in 2012, and residents spent years fighting the county in federal court for basic services such as firefighting equipment and trash collection before county officials settled last year.
“We’re still fighting all the time,” said Maurice Bailey, a Hogg Hummock native whose mother, Cornelia Bailey, was a celebrated story- teller and one of Sapelo Island’s most prominent voices before her death in 2017. “They’re not going to stop. The people moving in don’t respect us as people. They love our food; they love our culture. But they don’t love us.”
Hogg Hummock’s population has been shrinking in recent decades, and some families have sold their land to outsiders who built vacation homes. New construction has caused tension over how large those homes can be.
Commissioners on Tuesday raised the maximum size of a home in Hogg Hummock to 3,000 square feet (278 square meters) of total enclosed space. The previous limit was 1,400 square feet (130 square meters) of heated and air-conditioned space.
See “Sapelo Island” page 12
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