About two dozen people who enjoyed camping or riding their ATVs at Savage Trails RV park turned out at the Oct. 7 Bulloch County commissioners meeting to express support for reopening the park, closed by a county zoning enforcement action since the Friday before Labor Day.
During the same meeting, county Planning and Development Director James Pope presented a list of proposed county Zoning Ordinance amendments that include, among several other unrelated things, new rules for motorbike and all-terrain vehicle tracks and trails. The Board of Commissioners unanimously “tabled” the ordinance changes, postponing any action on those until the board’s next evening meeting, 5:30 p.m. Nov. 4.
Savage Trails has a 2240 Mill Branch Club Road, Pembroke, address but it is within Bulloch County in the area of Luke Swamp.
On the morning of August 29, the county’s code enforcement officers, in coordination with the state Environmental Protection Division, served a “cease and desist” order to Savage Trails LLC, according to a county media release issued that day.
While acknowledging that Savage Trails had in January 2022 received a conditional use permit to operate a 13.8-acre RV park and campground, the county’s statement asserted that the business had been operating beyond the approved acreage. In fact, Savage Trails’ intro to its Facebook page touts “24/7 access to 430 acres of trails, mud & fun.”
“Additionally, the facility has been functioning as an outdoor commercial recreational facility without the required conditional use permit,” the county’s Aug. 29 release stated.
Labor Day weekend
The RV park’s 2025 activities calendar had listed a “Savage Trails Bounty Series/Labor Day Weekend” event for Aug. 29-31, and participants were already arriving. But immediately after the county’s enforcement notices, the business’s social media pages reported that park was “temporarily closed” and have since been used to promote some charitable and nonprofit events and a petition drive for the county to allow Savage Trails to reopen.
When Pope introduced the zoning amendment during the Tuesday evening meeting, commissioners Chairman David Bennett opened a public hearing on the topic. Two men – Justin Strickland, who is a vice president on the Savage Trails board, and Nathan Field, who is board president – had signed up to speak in opposition to the amendment. But only Strickland did so, after which Field said Strickland had covered the topic.
“I’m here today on behalf of many families, riders and supporters of Savage Trails, a 430-acre park that has proudly served as a safe, family-friendly space for recreation, for community connection since 2021,” Strickland began. “Over the past four years Savage Trails has operated with no major safety issues, no violations, no disruptions to the surrounding county.”
From August 2024 to August 2025, the park had 15,736 visits by “almost 6,000 people” who came “to our county and spend money in our area,” he said. The park and its membership, he added, support local charity fundraisers, contribute to organizations such as Feed the Boro, the Shriners and Eagle Nation Fund, among others, and have conducted trash cleanups and helped in disaster response.
‘Grandfather’ request
Addressing the commissioners, Strickland then requested that Savage Trails “be grandfathered in under the original regulations governing (its) operations” and asserted that it “was lawfully established and begun operations in 2021, well before the ordinance amendments adopted in 2023 and the additional changes under consideration today.”
When he asked people who were there to support Savage Trails to stand, more than half of the non-county-employee citizens in attendance stood up. He said that “well over 1,700 people” in the organization’s “riding community,” had signed a petition. The signature count shown on the Change.org page for “Support Savage Trails LLC Rezoning Approval …” Thursday was 1,775.
Commissioners and staff briefly discussed the proposed new rules regarding ATV tracks and trails in the draft of zoning amendments. Bennett noted that they would not apply to anyone riding an ATV on their own land, and Pope agreed that the rules would only apply to businesses, where trails are operated “for money.”
Commissioner Nick Newkirk asked whether it was true the new rules wouldn’t “go back on existing businesses,” but only apply to businesses started after the amendment is adopted. Newkirk said, “Yes,” when County Attorney Jeff Akins asked if he was talking specifically about Savage Trails.
County’s stance
“Our position is that Savage Trails was never a legal business from its inception,” Akins said. “They were required to get a conditional use to operate and they did not do that, and so when it’s an illegal use from its inception, you cannot get a grandfathered right or a vested right.”
So in the county staff’s view, he said, the only way Savage Trails could continue in business is “to apply for and obtain a conditional use under the Zoning Ordinance.”
If the owner or operators apply before the now proposed amendment is adopted, the park could operate under the current rules. Or, if they wait to apply until after the amendment is adopted, the new rules would apply to Savage Trails, the county attorney said.
Amendments tabled
On a motion from Commissioner Toby Conner, seconded by Commissioner Timmy Rushing, the commissioners voted 5-0, with Commissioner Anthony Simmons absent, to table the zoning ordinance amendment package to Nov. 4. Pope said it is expected to be the only planning and zoning item for that meeting.
Commissioners then moved on through Tuesday’s agenda, but two women – Alexis Waters and Megan Snellgrove – who signed up for the general public comments time also spoke for allowing Savage Trails to reopen.
Waters said she had traveled three hours from her home in Monticello to speak on behalf of herself, her husband and 10-year-old son and “a passionate community” of “mud park” patrons about “a place where families come together and friendships are formed” and which some see as “a second home.”
Savage Trails, she noted, has a “business license,” which as Akins later clarified, is really a county-issued occupational tax certificate.
“How do you get a business license if they’re doing something illegal and it’s been going on four years?” Waters asked.
Snellgrove described the RV park in similar terms and as designed by owner-operator Keith Dixon as “a safe place to get four-wheelers and side-by-sides off the county roads, into the woods for families to ride.”
1 of 2 letters dropped
According to follow-up information received Thursday via county Communications Director Dal Cannady, the county government on Aug. 29 actually issued two cease-and-desist letters to Savage Trails LLC, but one of those orders has since been rescinded.
One letter was for operation of “an outdoor commercial recreation facility,” in other words the ATV park, without conditional-use approval. The other letter was for non-compliance with the business’s existing conditional use approval for a recreational vehicle park and campground because it had expanded beyond the permitted 13.8 acres.
“We rescinded the cease-and-desist for the campground on September 16 but required them to operate only on the approved 13.8 acres, which is zoned general commercial,” Cannady stated in an email after consulting Pope. “The cease-and-desist for an unpermitted outdoor commercial recreation facility remains in effect.”
The Statesboro Herald has not confirmed what if any current actions the state EPD has pending with regard to Savage Trails. Field said the EPD came out that day in regards to the wells, septic system and “allegations supposedly of wetlands.”
Proposed new rules
If enacted by the commissioners, the proposed zoning amendment on “Go Cart, ATV, Motorbike Track and Trails” would limit such uses to tracts of more than 100 acres, require a plan to keep all the dust raised on the property, limit hours of operation, limit ATV and motorcycle noise levels to 120 decibels and require spark arresters. Additionally, the entire property would have to be fenced, all trails kept at least 50 feet away from property lines, and “quiet zones” limiting music and other non-vehicle noise would be required up to 500 feet from neighboring residential properties.
The amended ordinance would also “generally” require a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determination of wetlands and that trails proposed to disturb wetlands comply with county regulations and federal law.