The Landings on Skidaway Island

Two different obligations run on two different tracks here, and conflating them is the single most common confusion I hear about a purchase like this. Every homeowner is automatically a member of The Landings Association (opens in a new tab), the property owners' association, and pays its mandatory annual assessment. I am not quoting a figure for it, because the Association was mid-vote on its 2027-2029 assessment as of this review. That membership has nothing to do with golf, tennis, or the clubhouses.

The Landings Golf & Athletic Club (opens in a new tab) runs on a separate track. It publishes several membership levels, and it is the Club, not the Association, that actually gates access to the golf courses, marina slips, tennis, pickleball, and fitness center. Whether a specific home comes with Club membership already attached, requires a new membership purchased separately, or allows an existing membership to transfer at closing is a property-by-property question, not a community-wide answer, and I have not verified a blanket transfer rule that would apply to every listing here.

Ask the specific question on the specific listing before you assume either way: whether membership is included, what tier, what it would cost to add or upgrade, and whether the seller's membership transfers or lapses at closing. Club Membership, Explained walks through initiation, dues, transfer, and waitlist mechanics in general, since the same distinction between a mandatory Association assessment and an optional-but-necessary Club membership shows up at more than one Savannah club community.

One thing sets Skidaway Island apart from Savannah's other club communities, and it isn't a membership term. Diamond Causeway, the GA 204 Spur, is the community's physical road connection to the mainland, a two-lane crossing over the Skidaway Narrows that carries every resident, contractor, delivery van, and ambulance headed on or off the island. One golf publication's tour of the community (opens in a new tab) colorfully describes it as "six courses, one road in," a memorable line, not an authority. The actual authority on what a single road means for evacuation is Chatham Emergency Management Agency (opens in a new tab), whose live tool tells a specific address which evacuation zone it falls in, not a golf writer's description. I have not independently confirmed with the county that no second route exists, or what an official evacuation timeline for this specific causeway is, so treat a single road on and off the island as a real question to put to CEMA directly, not a settled hazard rating. Savannah Quarters, The Ford, and Southbridge, this community's mainland peers, don't carry that same single-point consideration to begin with.

The second real cost surprise is timing, not the membership question itself. The Landings Association raised its non-property-owner access fee (opens in a new tab) from 7.5% to 25% of annual dues for non-owner Club members effective March 2024, the first change to that fee in 14 years by the board's own account. Whatever number a listing agent or a seller quotes for dues, assessments, or a transfer fee is a snapshot, not a guarantee. The honest answer to what this actually costs to own is to get the current figure in writing from the Association and the Club directly before you write an offer, not to assume last year's number still holds.

None of that makes The Landings a hard pass. Six golf courses, two marinas, and five decades of build-out are real, and for a buyer who wants golf, water, and a gated address without leaving Chatham County, there are very few comparable options on this coast. It does mean the road question and the actual membership terms attached to a specific listing belong in your due diligence before closing, not after your first hurricane season or your first annual dues notice.