Creation of Unincorporated Islands Prohibited; Authorization to Provide Services or Functions

1. Law
2. Georgia Code
3. Local Government
4. Annexation of Territory
5. General Provisions
6. Creation of Unincorporated Islands Prohibited; Authorization to Provide Services or Functions

1. The creation of unincorporated islands as described in paragraph (1), (2), or (3) of this subsection shall be prohibited:
   1. Annexation or deannexation which would result in the creation of an unincorporated area with its aggregate external boundaries abutting the annexing municipality;
   2. Annexation or deannexation which would result in the creation of an unincorporated area with its aggregate external boundaries abutting any combination of the annexing municipality and one or more other municipalities; or
   3. Annexation or deannexation which would result in the creation of an unincorporated area to which the county would have no reasonable means of physical access for the provision of services otherwise provided by the county governing authority solely to the unincorporated area of the county.
2. When requested by resolution of the county governing authority, a municipality is authorized to provide any service or exercise any function within an unincorporated island. Such authority shall be in addition to any other authority of the municipality to provide extraterritorial services or functions.For purposes of this subsection, "unincorporated island" shall have the same meaning as contained in paragraph (3) of Code Section 36-36-90.
3. The prohibition contained in subsection (a) of this Code section shall not apply to a local Act providing for deannexation of territory from a municipality that would create an unincorporated island where another local Act annexing the same territory into another municipality takes effect on the same date as the local Act providing for deannexation of such territory.

(Code 1981, §36-36-4, enacted by Ga. L. 1992, p. 2592, § 3; Ga. L. 2000, p. 164, § 2; Ga. L. 2015, p. 1345, § 1/HB 432.)

Code Commission notes.

- Pursuant to Code Section 28-9-5, in 1992, "subsection" was substituted for "Code section" in subsection (a), and "subsection" was substituted for "subparagraph" in subsection (b).

Law reviews.

- For annual survey of local government law, see 57 Mercer L. Rev. 289 (2005); and 58 Mercer L. Rev. 267 (2006). For annual survey of zoning and land use law, see 57 Mercer L. Rev. 447 (2005); and 58 Mercer L. Rev. 477 (2006).

JUDICIAL DECISIONS

Annexation not improper.

- Strip of land excepted from annexation by a city was excepted not in an effort to evade the "entire parcel" requirement of O.C.G.A. § 36-36-20(a)(2), but to annex the property without creating an unincorporated island in violation of O.C.G.A. § 36-36-4(a); there was no showing that the landowner subdivided the property to evade the requirements of O.C.G.A. § 36-36-20(a)(2), and the appellate court affirmed a trial court's refusal to enter a judgment declaring that a city's annexation was null and void, declining to reach a finding that would, in effect, have left the landowner no way of having the landowner's property annexed. Fayette County v. Steele, 268 Ga. App. 13, 601 S.E.2d 403 (2004).

By annexing a portion of a larger unincorporated area that was already qualified as an "unincorporated island," a city did not "create" a newly-formed unincorporated island in violation of O.C.G.A. § 36-36-4(a)(1), but simply reduced the size of a previously-existing island. Calloway v. City of Fayetteville, 296 Ga. App. 200, 674 S.E.2d 66 (2009).

Annexation challenge rendered moot by city's annexation of additional property.

- Taxpayer's challenge to a city's 2007 annexation of property based on the creation of an illegal unincorporated island within the new municipal boundaries, in violation of O.C.G.A. § 36-36-4, was moot under O.C.G.A. § 5-6-48(b)(3) because the city later remedied the violation by also annexing the unincorporated island. Scarbrough Group v. Worley, 290 Ga. 234, 719 S.E.2d 430 (2011).

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