Island Insider: Ty Symroksi

by SC Reporter Emilie Alfino

Just about everything Ty Symroski has done in his life has ended up benefiting Sanibel.

From the time he was five years old and fell in love with the island playing on the first new causeway as it was under construction, to fishing from it at 10 years old in 1962, Symroski would soon, in many ways, begin his service to Sanibel Island.

His experiences led him to become involved in the environmental movement in Students Against Pollution in Cypress Lake High School in 1970. He spent a summer tagging sea turtles with Charles LeBuff. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in land-use planning and went to work in the City of Sanibel Planning Department at a crucial time, soon after Sanibel’s comprehensive land use plan was adopted. He went on to serve on the board of the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation, the city’s Historical Preservation Committee, the Sanibel Planning Commission, and now is president of the board of the Sanibel Historical Museum & Village – continuing the work of his aunt Eleanor Dormer, who founded the museum in 1984 after the Rutland House was brought over to city land to become the Island Historical Museum.

Symroski’s family moved to Sanibel full-time in the summer of 1968 but his family had been coming to Sanibel long before he was born. His grandparents, Ross and Daisy Mayer, started coming in 1919, getting a break from the winter weather in Erie, Pennsylvania where they owned a paving and construction company. They bought property on San Carlos Bay and, along with another family member, built two Sears and Roebuck kit homes, both of which are now in the Sanibel Historical Museum & Village. They eventually owned about 80 acres of land along the bay and a variety of other parcels on the island. The family moved to Sanibel permanently in the 1940s. Daisy’s fourth child, Elinor Mayer Dormer (Symroski’s Aunt Ellie) was also a permanent resident. She was the first to realize the importance of preserving Sanibel’s special and unique history and was the founder of the “Island Historical Museum” in 1984, now the Sanibel Historical Museum & Village. It seems inevitable that Symroski himself would end up working for the City of Sanibel’s future.

Symroski said it was very exciting to be in Sanibel’s Planning Department in the early days after the land use plan was adopted. “My major in land-use planning at Michigan included courses that were not the easy ones, a lot of math. I took some engineering and surveying courses as well as navigation and economics. That turned out to be a great approach for my subsequent career as a city planner, so I studied everything, and as a city planner you’ve got to be conversant in a lot of topics, public health, water treatment, sociology, and more.”

This was a time of a real paradigm shift in the city. Sanibel had its new comprehensive plan. When the city incorporated, they hired a planning firm, Wallace, McHarg, Roberts and Todd (WMRT), and McHarg had written a book, Design with Nature. That’s why that firm was selected. “So we had this comprehensive plan that was based on the theme ‘design with nature,’’’ Symroski explained. Compare that to Cape Coral, he said, which completely obliterated nature and designed that city in accordance with their concept of a good place.

“So it was neat that on Sanibel the plan got adopted, and I started working very soon after that and started implementing that approach,” Symroski said. “I did start working on designing or compiling the ecozones map, the map of the ecological areas on the island, and those ecological areas became basically the zoning districts, mid-island ridge, mangroves, interior wetlands, and so forth. It was really exciting to be implementing this ‘design with nature.’”

Symroski made a big point always to tap the resources of developers. “Some people might call it arm twisting,” he said. “But I would try to tap the resources of developers to make improvements to the city infrastructure. For instance, some of the development along Causeway Road that was being developed by Mariner, I said, ‘You’re paving all these driveways and sidewalks, could you build a bicycle path from your driveway to Periwinkle?’ And they did it.”

Another time Symroski remembers there was a condominium being built at the south end of Tarpon Bay Road, and he told the developer, “You’re going to spend lots of money building these condos. You’ve got this public beach access right next to you – where do you think those people are going to go to the bathroom? Why don’t you give us that parking lot and why don’t you pay to make this a beach walkover and throw in some bathrooms at the same time?” And he agreed, because it was in his interest.

“So my approach was, shame on a city planner not to make these kinds of pushes,” Symroski said. “I think I’m kind of unique in that.”

Symroski also helped develop the little bike path from Gulfside City Park to Casa Ybel that goes by the cemetery, and he helped develop the alignment of the bike path along Sanibel Captiva and Palm Ridge roads. He identified the place to build the bridge at Bowman’s Beach and the layout of that parking lot and to keep it sand.

Symroski accomplished a lot in his three years in the Planning Department, then went on to graduate school in North Carolina. Some of Sanibel’s attorneys recruited him to go to the Keys, where he had a career in city planning.

Planning was not much different in Key West. “The Florida Keys has been designated an area of critical state concern because of the unique geography and infrastructure and proximity to Cuba. So it’s just different. When the state legislature adopts affordable housing programs, or environmental protection programs, they are designed to accommodate the bulk of the state population. Key West is such a unique place that programs for other places just don’t work. So the state of Florida had oversight over every building permit that the county issued,” Symroski said.

When he came back to Sanibel, Symroski’s first city involvement was on the Historical Preservation Committee, where they were developing the Heritage Trail. In the Keys he was a big early pusher for developing the Overseas Heritage Trail which used all the old bridges for bicycle trails. “I think if I had not been there, that project would not have become a state park,” he said. It was good preparation for his work on Sanibel.

Symroski was on the board of the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Program for a term and was on the Citizens Advisory Committee of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is the entity that does the transportation planning for the county.

“I think I have something to contribute in terms of the Planning Department, Planning Commission, and Historical Preservation Committee,” Symroski said. “My experience as a city planner fit very well. I know what’s expected of staff, I know what makes a board member, know how meetings are supposed to be run. In terms of the Historical Preservation Committee, Key West has the biggest historical preservation district in the country, encompassing 4,000 acres, so I had a lot of experience there. And writing regulations is something I did routinely in my career. So that worked very well for the Historical Preservation Committee and the Planning Commission. And I think I was helpful with being insightful with the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation.”

Symroski’s philosophy on the Planning Commission was to try to continue to push for designing with nature. “I brought that heritage to the Planning Commission, where I believe much of the time I was the only one that had that perspective; I’ve been quite disappointed with them,” he said. “I don’t know about more recent members, but I don’t think they have the institutional philosophy that went into the planning of Sanibel. My impression now is the Planning Commission is much more sympathetic to developers than ever before. But I may be wrong. I know there are some members that are not pro-developer. But they’ve granted variances that I don’t think are consistent with Sanibel’s comprehensive plan. I think they feel sorry for the developer. I understand the trials and trauma of creating a project, but I still think if they want to build on Sanibel, they should build Sanibel’s way. Some seem to feel we’ve already saved 65 percent of the island, so why are we worrying about the other 35 percent? Well, there’s a lot that can still be done with that 35 percent.”

The Symroski home sits on 22 of the original 80 Mayer acres. He and his wife Jan chose not to develop the land, which is now going to be part of the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge when Ty and Jan move to Hawaii this fall. It’s the Mayer property, but it’s the Symroskis who are preserving it.

“We are so thrilled to help preserve this important stretch of island green space, which is vital habitat, in perpetuity,” said “Ding” Darling Wildlife Society Board of Directors President Bill Harkey. Two conservation plots bookend the Symroski property, which will complete a critical wildlife corridor through mostly undeveloped land planted with mangroves and other native vegetation.

Symroski has been working with Tarpon Bay Explorers for the past 10 years, giving tours laced with history to kayakers and boaters. “Visitors are very interested, and I am able to bring in some history and relate some interesting stories,” Symroski said.” It also gives me an opportunity to encourage them to watch how they pollute, how we have issues with water quality from Lake Okeechobee, and so forth.”

Symroski is excited to see the attention to resiliency for Sanibel’s future. “That’s going to be very good for the community,” he said. “I wish we could have a lot more affordable housing for people who work on the island if we want to be a true community. I think we need to be able to provide housing for many more than just the low-income, and I hope the city will do that. That will be very good for the environment as well.”

On a longer-term basis, Symroski thinks Sanibel has not accepted that climate change is happening. “The governor just rejected every time climate change was mentioned in legislation,” he said. “If you look at Rep. Byron Donalds’ website and you want to send him an email, you can choose the issues from a drop-down menu, and climate change isn’t even listed – out of 36 topics, climate change doesn’t make the list,” Symroski said. “I think in the next time capsule, we have should include their thoughts on climate change and see what it is when it’s opened up 50 years from now.”

Symroski thinks Sanibel is going to become more of a second-home place, with nothing happening in the summer. There will be very resilient buildings, he predicted, that people can vacate in the summer when hurricanes come. But the buildings will survive, and people will continue to come here and have a wonderful wintertime here. “It’s just gorgeous here,” he said.

Symroski is the last of the Mayer family on Sanibel as he heads to Hawaii. He said with moves like this one, there are always some regrets. “If you weren’t sad about leaving a place, then it means you were there too long,” Symroski said. “The only time you should be happy to leave someplace is when you’re getting out of prison. It doesn’t make me happy to be leaving Sanibel; I’m happy about going to Hawaii. I’m sad about giving up on helping Sanibel deal with the future. But I have full confidence in the people of Sanibel, they’ll do just fine. There are a lot of very good, well-meaning, smart people here. So, I’m not too worried about it.”