McIntosh County commissioners revisit Hog Hammock zoning amid community concerns

MCINTOSH COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - McIntosh County commissioners called a special meeting Thursday to revisit zoning in the historic Hog Hammock area, one of Georgia’s last intact Gullah Geechee island communities.

County leaders want to update zoning rules on house size after residents raised concerns about larger homes driving up property values and forcing them out.

A last-minute agenda item and a closed-door discussion put Hog Hammock’s future back in the spotlight and left residents asking who gets a seat at the table.

The future of Hog Hammock was on the agenda, but for nearly an hour, conversation happened behind closed doors, leaving residents asking why decisions about their homes are being discussed without them in the room.

“Is the process being done in a way so that people can participate? And their voices can be heard. This is just not the best start,” said Josiah Watts, a Sapelo Island resident.

County residents say a draft ordinance was added to the county commission’s agenda at the last minute.

“It came out in the papers yesterday, and people would have had to change their daily lives and schedule to try to be here today. There wasn’t enough time,” Watts said.

After the closed session, commissioners reviewed and approved a new ordinance draft which Chairwoman Kate Karwacke said will be “downsizing it from what it previously was.”

In the approved draft, the maximum home size is lowered from 3,000 square feet to 1,800, and the ordinance reduces the building height to 35 feet.

Karwacke said the new draft would add back sanitation language from before the September 2023 amendments.

She said residents should not fear losing the charm of the ancestral footprint of the Gullah Geechee community due to new growth.

“The certificate of appropriateness previously in place will remain in effect and everything like that. So we’re hoping that this would just calm everyone’s concerns about, but, mainly again, the most contested part of it was the square footage,” Karwacke said.

The draft will now go to planning and zoning for approval. There will be a time for public comments. The updated draft will go back to the county commissioners for further review. The draft will be public record and available to the public tomorrow.