THE PUSH-PULL FACTOR

I  live on an island in the Gulf of Mexico off the southwest coast of Florida called Sanibel Island, separated from the mainland and the southern portion of Fort Myers, Florida by a causeway. My family and I first came here as tourists in 1974, purchased a beachfront condo which we still own in 1977 and my wife and I moved permanently here and built a house in 2002. It is a lovely, serene and ecologically aware place to live with about 12,000 permanent inhabitants. it is reknowned as one of the great shelling beaches of the world and famous for "the Sanibel Stoop" where you see only asses and elbows of the avid shellers.

In 1974 a group of ecologically-minded visionaries constructed a charter called "The Sanibel Vision" which laid out the groundwork for a controlled sound environment with the density per mile controlled and limiting the height of condominiums to palm tree height; i.e., 3-stories. Having seen what uncontrolled greed in development had done to the beauty of other Florida resorts, these farsighted leaders did not want such to happen to Sanibel. It was enacted into law by a far-sighted city commission, and any changes to this charter, The Sanibel Vision, must be by a referendum vote.

In spite of this enactment, some realtors, local store owners, restauranteurs and developers push for economic growth. Translated, this means, let the island grow so we can make more bucks.  The last few years have seen a rivalry formed in electing city commisioners between those wanting more development and those wanting to maintain our island paradise. Commission meetings are a real push-pull battle.

Most of us who live on the island realize that we don't have an exclusive on its beauty and welcome tourists, especially in the winter months, because our stores, retaurants and service establishments need to earn a living, and tourist seaon is where the action is.  We are willing to live with traffic congestion, For example, the main artery of our island, Periwinkle Way, is a two-lane road and has no stop lights. In tourist season, if you want to get off the island, you best do so before 3:00 p.m.; else you will have a traffic wait of two hours, in some cases, to get off the island. It is a pain in the neck sometimes, but you learn to live with this fact of life. We "natives" (anyone who lives here permanently) know all the tricks of taking the back roads to avoid the congestion in tourist season and to approach Causeway Boulevard  by a couple of alternate routes to avoid in some part the long lines on Periwinkle Way. And, I note this year, the lines to get off the island are even starting to form before 2:00 p.m., and the back routes are filled!

The well-known Frommer Travel Guide listed Sanibel as Art Frommer's favorite destination, beating out Bali and Paris, to name a couple of hot spots. Maybe, I thought at the time I purchased a t-shirt last year showing Frommer's Top Ten with Sanibel Island as numero uno, this publicity might be the kiss of death.

All I know is, I have never seen the island, in my thirty-nine years here as, first, tourist and, later, resident so crowded---no, JAMMED. It is not simply inconvenient to get around the island, it can be absolute hell. Yesterday, for example, I went to our municipal Rec Center to work out---normally a trip of fifteen or less minutes. It took me forty minutes to get there and forty-five to come home! A road accident involving a car hitting a bicyclist. plus roadwork by a utility crew made it worse, but, even without that, the road are jammed. We have bike paths all over the island, and they are equally congested.

I bumped into a friend, a retired surgeon and former Professor at a well-known university in the Midwest, and he commented to me his concerns. He has lived on the island longer than I and is a true nature lover and ecologist. He made the observation that even the charitable organizations which buy up land on the island as natural preserves (2/3 of the island is preserved) or rehabilitate wildlife and even the arts organization and the famous Ding Darling Bird Sanctuary are building new facilities or offering more programs to attract more visitors. We both commented that we don't see the quantity of birds at the beach we once did. "They've been crowded out by people," he wryly observed.

So, I am wondering, are we nearing the point of no return?  Will we continue to encourage unbridled growth and/or attraction of tourists?  Will the balance between the economic growers and developers and the ecologically concerned swing to the greed side? The push-pull factor is in operation, and I suspect that the near future is going to bring this battle to the foreground . I know with whom I will enlist to fight the good fight!