The Preservation Society of Fall River respectfully asks that the Zoning Board deny the variance and special permit request for the 16 townhouse units proposed in the historic Commercial Mill District on Alden Street.

The townhouses proposed for the location would not be consistent with the neighborhood, which mirrors the National Register of Historic Places-designated Quequechan Valley Mills Historic District on the opposite bank of the river.

This neighborhood, primarily made of granite mills and tenement housing, is a unified pocket of Fall River history that deserves to be protected from variations of city ordinance that don’t work to protect it.

While many of the historic mills in the Quequechan Valley Mills Historic District are now gone, many of the mills on Alden Street have already been redeveloped or are in the process of being redeveloped into a variety of housing stock.

With more frontage on the Quequechan River Rail Trail than an accepted city street, these out-of-place townhouses encroaching on the community’s history and recreation would be a detriment to efforts to redevelop the area in a respectful manner and Fall River as a whole.

Please uphold Fall River’s ordinances with respect to this proposal and follow the guidance of the Fall River Master Plan and Downtown and Waterfront Urban Renewal Plans which call for development in historic areas to be congruent with the neighborhoods around them.