Jekyll Island Master Plan Update
Fails to Address Development Issues
JEKYLL NEEDS YOUR HELP!
 
The Jekyll Island Authority Board has approved the final draft of the state park’s Master Plan Update (MPU), which will soon be sent to the Jekyll Island Legislative Oversight Committee for approval. The Master Plan is, by law, the guiding document for the island and is therefore vitally important for the state park’s future.
 
The Initiative to Protect Jekyll Island (IPJI), along with the Center for a Sustainable Coast and One-Hundred Miles, is calling for the Legislative Oversight Committee to require the MPU to be amended because it fails to provide sufficient guidance for the JIA’s operation, maintenance and protection of Jekyll Island State Park, particularly with respect to further development and redevelopment of the island. We are asking our members to tell Governor Brian Kemp and the Legislative Oversight Committee not only to require amendment of the MPU but impose a moratorium on development for three reasons:
 
  • The MPU fails to include a long-term plan for controlling development of the island,as recommended in the 2018 Jekyll Island Carrying Capacity and Infrastructure Study – READ MORE

  • The MPU fails to take into account the concerns of the state park’s users about the impact of overdeveloping the island – READ MORE

  • The MPU fails to deal with the controversial proposals offered in the Jekyll Island Golf Course Master Plan regarding commercial and residential redevelopment of Jekyll’s 63-hole golf course complex as a way to help make the golf courses financially self-sustaining. – READ MORE
TAKE ACTION NOW!

Contact the officials responsible for overseeing the Jekyll Island Master Plan

To make your concerns and objections known to Governor Kemp, his chief of staff, and the legislators who oversee the Jekyll Island Master Plan, copy their email addresses into your address bar and send one email to all of them.


Contact the JIA

**Send your comments to the JIA by October 17th. All comments will be included in the Appendix to the Master Plan.
Master Plan Update adds two conservation
measures for the island

The MPU includes the following positive additions to the Natural Resource Section of the plan:
  • It incorporates the Conservation Priority Areas (CPA) as outlined in the 2020 Conservation Plan, ensuring the protection a CPA designation provides by being in the Master Plan. 
  • It reclassifies priority habitat from developed to undeveloped areas and designates them as CPAs. Most notable of the reclassified locations is the “Beach Prairie” paralleling Beachview Drive, which "offers “a rare experience of unobstructed ocean views along the beachfront” - one of Jekyll’s natural treasures.
These valuable updates to the Master Plan are consistent with the mission statement of the JIA: “maintaining the delicate balance between nature and humankind.”
To read the draft of the 2021 Master Plan Update and the comments from the public (appendix C), click here. Note that the link to the 2021 update draft is below the current Master Plan.

The JIA is holding a public hearing on the Master Plan Update at 5:30 pm on October 14th at the Jekyll Island Convention Center. Verbal comments at that meeting will be entered into the record.
THANK YOU FOR STANDING UP FOR
JEKYLL ISLAND ONE MORE TIME!
David and Mindy Egan
308 Old Plantation Rd
Jekyll Island, GA 31527
Phone: 912-577-4655
degan1@bellsouth.net