Neighborhood Advocate

Sylvia Kochler’s husband calls her a full-time meddler. She laughingly accepts the title but prefers to think of herself as a very active community volunteer.

Kochler moved to historic downtown Wilmington six years ago. She said it’s a great privilege to live in the historic area, and with that privilege comes responsibility for its preservation and protection. As such, she has served on the board of Residents of Old Wilmington (ROW) and currently serves as ROW’s mayor. She defines ROW as being both a social group and an advocacy group.

In that capacity, she uses her considerable energy and skill advocating for the 300 or so households that live from the Cape Fear River to Eighth Street and from Red Cross to Queen streets.

She and ROW members have spoken out against the proposed height for the upcoming Water Street parking deck redevelopment, an issue she says she believes has been resolved to ROW’s satisfaction.

The group is awaiting an answer from city officials on enforcement of short-term vacation rentals within the district. Her letter to the city requesting enforcement states there are perhaps eighty homes being rented short term.

"More concerning, we are at risk of losing the historical residential character of our neighborhoods," she says in the letter.

City officials say the city code currently allows rentals if they are for at least seven days. Staff members are gathering information about how other cities are handling the issue of shorter rentals as services like Airbnb take off and plan to discuss it with the city council early next year, says city spokeswoman Malissa Talbert.

That balance is not new, Kochler says.

“Every few years, businesses begin to encroach into the residential neighborhood. A few years back it was law offices buying up houses closer to the courthouse,” Kochler says.

Next it was bed and breakfasts, she says. ROW was an advocate to push back in both cases where businesses were in violation of the zoning codes.

“The central business district has many of these businesses. They serve them well. They don’t belong in residential neighborhoods. We’re not anti-tourist or anti-business. We work to support the businesses,” she says. “Were not anti-growth or anti-change, but in favor of things occurring in the right way and the right place.”

Kochler attended law school at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and practiced corporate law for twenty-five years in Atlanta before retiring and coming home to North Carolina, initially settling in Franklin where she became very involved as a volunteer for Legal Aid to assist victims of domestic violence.

Franklin was a little too small for her New York-bred husband, also an attorney, so they moved to the coast where she also has family.

“I like to be busy. I didn’t take to retirement too well,” she says.

Her involvement with ROW gives her an opportunity to use a skill set she says includes research for facts and precedence.

“I research the land development code, the facts surrounding an issue, what other cities that have faced similar problems are doing," she says. "I start from the perspective that there’s a lot I don’t know, but I need to know, about that issue before I develop an opinion.”

Kochler believes strongly in the economic and cultural value of the historic district.

“When we are good advocates and protectors of that asset we have downtown, we’re also being good stewards for Wilmington, for New Hanover, and for the state because the history and the culture belong to everybody. We think we are contributing to the heritage, the culture, and the social fabric of the state,” she says.

The group also has fun, she adds, with social events and more.

It has planted trees in downtown since the group’s inception in 1972, including fifty live oaks on Fifth Avenue, elms on Second and Front streets, and most recently, palm trees behind the post office.

“Over the past forty years, we have changed what downtown looks like in terms of the leafy, beautiful greenness,” Kochler says.

Members are working with the city on an initiative to decrease speeding downtown and improve pedestrian safety as well as development of a downtown walking loop to be called the 1739 Walking Loop, “obviously for the founding of Wilmington,” she said of the name.

They’re also teaming with other downtown organizations for the inaugural Historic Wilmington Holly Jolly Holiday Stroll, which will highlight downtown businesses and homes December 11 and 12.

The free event will encourage people to come downtown for shopping and sightseeing.

Kochler says she never really retired; she just stopped working for money.

“There is a wonderful gospel song, ‘Brighten the Corner Where You Are.’ It’s also a book by Fred Chappell. That has always been my personal motto,” Kochler says. “You have the privilege to live where you do, and certainly it’s a privilege to live in historic downtown Wilmington. That’s what I’m trying to do, keep myself busy and out of trouble, intellectually engaged, and brighten the corner.”

To view more of photographer Chris Brehmer's work, go to www.chrisbrehmerphotography.com