A visit to Florida's Sanibel Island is a joyful trip back in time to a quieter, more rustic and less glitzy version of the Sunshine State. And that's just the way the city of Sanibel wants it to stay.

Perhaps one of the most disappointing things about traveling back to a place you loved, even after just a short absence, is to find that things changed. An empty lot is now a 7-Eleven, a quaint old house by the beach has turned into a mega mansion, another chain store has replaced a small retailer.

The beauty of Sanibel, a boomerang-shaped island in the Gulf of Mexico off Fort Myers, is that it has stayed the course of its founding fathers, who wanted to attract tourists but at the same time preserve the environment and the more rural feel of old Florida.

The island is visited by about 31,000 tourists every day, a huge number of whom come from the upper Midwest to enjoy the average year-round temperature of 74 degrees. They decompress, spend days shelling on the beach - the island's most noteworthy activity - fish, kayak, bike the miles of off-road trails that crisscross the island and eat at their favorite restaurants. The Lighthouse Cafe, Mc T's and the Sanibel Café, in fact, have served guests for generations.

Sanibel's slower pace and casual lifestyle means that it's rare you'll need more than a T-shirt and shorts to be comfortable almost everywhere you go. Bikes and pedestrians rule, and if you stay off the island's main drag, Periwinkle Way, during the 5 p.m. rush hour as workers head out across the causeway, traffic headaches are minor. That makes the island broadly appealing across different generations.

My family and I have been vacationing in Sanibel since 1988 and the beautiful, most reassuring fact about Sanibel is that things don't change.

Sanibel has been able to keep things at a slow pace largely through proactive city ordinances, which are the reason for some surprising attributes that have helped define this island.

The causeway that joined Sanibel to the mainland in 1963 prompted a flurry of building on the island from single-family home development to large resort properties such as the Sundial. But by the 1970s, residents were getting worried. Development was taxing the sewer and water systems, freshwater rivers were being filled in and mangroves destroyed. To paraphrase the old Joni Mitchell song, residents feared their paradise would be paved over for a parking lot.

As an unincorporated part of Lee County, Sanibel represented a rich and growing tax base for the county where land use planners had targeted the island as a place for intensive, high density development that would permit housing for as many as 90,000 residents. That was an alarming figure, especially so when one considers that today the island only has about 6,000 permanent dwellers and a seasonal peak population of 18,000.

According to Zimomra, incorporation came about largely because of two concerns, both centering on protection - of residents and the environment. As an unincorporated area, Sanibel didn't have its own police force and was reliant on the Lee County Sheriff for protection. And it was eager to preserve its unique environmental system. Incorporation would allow Sanibel to create its own police force and enact land use codes based on eco systems.

Residents voted for incorporation in 1974 and Porter Goss, who would later go on to be head of the Central Intelligence Agency, was picked as its first mayor.

The unusual zoning worked, such that today 72% of the island is either a managed preserve, national wildlife refuge or conservation land.

If visitors to Sanibel have ever wondered why the stars seem brighter, the horizon is clear of high rises and the shopping areas are free of the chain establishment that often render one city indistinguishable from another, it is due largely to a variety of ordinances that were the core of Sanibel's incorporation drive.

Stars shine brightly

The brilliant stars are no accident. Sanibel has what it calls its 'dark sky' rule. Palm trees are attractive at night when illuminated from below, but you won't find any of that kind of lighting on Sanibel, where all new lighting must aim down.

You also won't find high-rise condos like those that line the shoreline in nearby Fort Myers Beach or Naples. One of the city's charter referendums restricted building height to no more than four stories.

And if a McDonald's hamburger is what you're craving, a trip across the causeway back to the mainland would be in order. Ten years ago when the hamburger chain wanted a spot on the island, residents rebelled and another ordinance followed. No 'formula' restaurant chains are allowed on the islands. That said, Periwinkle Way has a Subway and Dairy Queen. Both were grandfathered in.

Zimomra says a similar movement is afoot to restrict 'formula' retailers like Wal-Mart and the Gap. Ironically, Chico's, a women's clothing chain that is now a fixture in malls across America, got its start as an independent retailer in Sanibel's Periwinkle Place shopping center, where it's still a tenant.

Bridgit Stone who is director of marketing for the Sanibel-Captiva Chamber of Commerce, agrees that her island is a comfortable piece of old Florida, a fact that sometimes makes the island a tough sell for the chamber when competing against other parts of Florida that sport more bling, high-end shopping, nightlife and fine dining.

But for others that is the attraction. Sanibel is like your easy chair and favorite slippers, comfort all the way.

'The minute you cross the causeway,' says Stone, 'everything bad just melts away.'

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