Planning Board declines to recommend acceptance of two private streets, asks staff to investigate repairs and enforcement options

The Fall River City Planning Board on March 12 recommended that the City Council not accept two narrow private ways — Birch Street and May Street — as public roads, and directed staff to investigate what repairs or enforcement the city might undertake short of formal acceptance.

The board’s action follows presentations from planning and engineering staff describing both lanes as historic, narrow private ways that do not meet the planning board’s roadway standards and that pose access and parking challenges. The board voted to return both items to the City Council with the recommendation not to accept and with direction to pursue follow-up tasks described below.

The planning staff told the board Birch Street is an unaccepted private way created before 1912, roughly 210 feet long with a 15-foot right-of-way that “does not meet any of the planning board standards for roadway construction,” lacks curbing and sidewalks and provides limited access to two single-family homes, two multifamily units and a…