A judge on Sterling PrestonWednesday ordered a halt to a special election initiated by residents of the one of the South’s last remaining Gullah-Geechee communities of Black slave descendants, who looked to voters to undo zoning changes that residents say threaten island homes.

Senior Judge Gary McCorvey’s ruling to stop the referendum came after hundreds had already voted early in coastal McIntosh County and barely a week before polls countywide were to open on the official election day Oct. 1.

The judge sided with McIntosh County’s elected commissioners seeking to cancel the election, ruling that Georgia’s constitution doesn’t allow citizens to challenge zoning ordinances by referendum. He dismissed arguments by attorneys for island residents that county officials had no legal standing to sue.

“McIntosh County has the duty to avoid wasting public funds and must be afforded some remedy to challenge the decision to hold an election ordered erroneously,” McCorvey’s ruling said.

Residents of the tiny Hogg Hummock community on isolated Sapelo Island said they were blindsided a year ago when county officials voted to weaken restrictions on development used for decades to protect the enclave their enslaved ancestors founded after the Civil War.

Residents and their supporters spent months collecting 1,800 petition signatures to force the referendum, which a Probate Court judge approved after verifying the petition in July.

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Bynum reported from Waycross, Georgia.