By Seth Gunning and William Tomlin
A recent move by the Camden County Board of County Commissioners could open Cumberland Island to development by a handful of elite property owners, including heirs of Coca-Cola founder Asa Candler.
Matt Smith reported in the last Georgia Sierran on a request by Lumar LLC, a company owned by the Candler heirs, for a hardship variance that would allow the Candlers to subdivide and develop 10 homes on 88-acres of the pristine island located directly adjacent to the National Park Service’s “Sea Camp”. The Camden County Planning Commission approved the variance in December despite receiving hundreds of letters and public comments in opposition.
Responding to the variance approval, Eleven-thousand Sierra Club supporters from around the nation sent in messages to County Commissioners urging them to overturn the variance decision. The Southern Environmental Law Center, representing both local and national conservation groups, filed a formal appeal from the Planning Commission’s decision with the Board of County Commissioners.
The Board was set to make a final decision on the variance in February. Instead the Board extended the appeal by 60-days to allow for a reexamination of the zoning for all 1,000 acres of privately held land on the Island, a move that could allow hundreds of homes to be built on Cumberland.
Cumberland Island is a Georgia treasure cherished by people across the nation. The largest and most biodiverse of Georgia’s barrier islands, the island is home to the Cumberland Island National Seashore, a unit of the National Park Service that includes federally designated wilderness, and several distinct ecosystems including delicate sand dunes, salt marsh, and maritime forest. Cumberland Island is also one of the last remnant stretches of wild coastline anywhere on the southern Atlantic coast and the last barrier island of significant size that has not been substantially developed or crisscrossed with roads. The barrier islands stretch from New Jersey to South Beach in Miami, Florida before picking up again on Florida’s Gulf Coast and reaching all the way to the US-Mexico Border. For its unique and significant importance to coastal diversity, United Nations honored Cumberland Island in 1986 by including it as part of the greater Carolinian-South Atlantic Biosphere Reserve.
Privately held land on Cumberland Island is currently zoned “conservation preservation,” a designation that ensures protection for wildlife refuges and areas that “possess great natural beauty, are of historical or ecological significance, are utilized for recreational purposes or provide needed open spaces for the health and general welfare of the county’s inhabitants.” This zoning designation is ideal for land bordering a National Seashore and Wilderness Area on a delicate and ecologicallydiverse barrier island.
Any rezoning would devastate Cumberland’s precious ecological balance and the experiences of the nearly eighty-thousand annual visitors who come from around the world to experience one of the east coast’s last wildernesses. Sea Camp, the main campground on Cumberland, sits adjacent to the Candler property, and new development on Cumberland would defeat the National Park Service’s goal of eventually obtaining and preserving the entire island for the enjoyment of all Americans.
Your national seashore needs your voice in order to remain wild. Camden County Commissioners need to hear from Georgians from around the state who oppose new private development on one of our coast’s last remaining wild islands.