Opinion ID: 1954124
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Approval of CDS

Text: With respect to the board's approval of the CDS, the plaintiffs first argue that the trial court erred when it affirmed the board's decision to waive a requirement that there be no more than ten lots on a dead-end street. One of the town's subdivision regulations states that a dead-end street may service no more than ten lots. The CDS approved by the board, however, contains a cul-de-sac that services seventeen lots. The record reveals that the board decided to waive the ten-lot requirement because it preferred the cul-de-sac configuration in the proposed CDS to the loop road configuration in the yield plan. The trial court ruled that the waiver was reasonable under the circumstances. We disagree. The board's subdivision regulations permit the board to approve a plan that substantially conforms to the regulations where strict conformity to these regulations would cause undue hardship or injustice to the owner of the land and the spirit of these regulations and public convenience and welfare will not be adversely affected. This is consistent with RSA 674:36, II(n) (Supp.2006), which allows a planning board to adopt regulations providing for waiver where strict conformity would pose an unnecessary hardship to the applicant and waiver would not be contrary to the spirit and intent of the regulations. The plaintiffs contend that, because there is no evidence that the loop road configuration would cause undue hardship or injustice to Graystone, the board erred by waiving the ten-lot requirement. We agree. The board had no evidence before it that the loop road configuration would cause any hardship to Graystone, much less undue hardship. The record reveals that the sole reason that the board decided to waive the ten-lot requirement was because it preferred the cul-de-sac design, not because the loop road design would cause undue hardship or injustice to Graystone. To the extent that the trial court found otherwise, its finding is not supported by the record. Absent any evidence of undue hardship or injustice to Graystone, we hold that the board erred by waiving the ten-lot requirement and that the superior court erred by upholding this. We, therefore, reverse the superior court's decision to uphold the board's approval of Graystone's proposed CDS and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. In the interests of judicial economy, we address the parties' other arguments inasmuch as they are likely to arise upon remand. See Kelleher v. Marvin Lumber & Cedar Co., 152 N.H. 813, 847, 891 A.2d 477 (2005).
The plaintiffs next assert that the superior court erred when it affirmed the board's approval of the proposed CDS because the board reneged upon its promise to review the environmental impact of the proposed CDS upon a nearby lake to which the plaintiffs have easement rights. Absent citation to any authority to support their argument, the plaintiffs contend that the board's failure to conduct this review violated their procedural due process rights. The plaintiffs, however, have failed to develop this argument sufficiently for our review. See In the Matter of Bazemore & Jack, 153 N.H. 351, 356, 899 A.2d 225 (2006). The plaintiffs have not sufficiently stated the legally protected interest they claim is at issue. Nor, as the trial court observed, have they pointed to [any] authority guaranteeing them independent engineering review of the impacts on [the lake] as part of their due process rights. Under these circumstances, we decline to review their argument.
Next, the plaintiffs argue that their procedural due process rights were violated because a board member voted upon the proposed CDS even though he missed two of the multiple hearings on the proposal. We address this argument under the Federal Constitution only as the plaintiffs have failed to cite any provision under the State Constitution. See State v. MacElman, 154 N.H. 304, 310, 910 A.2d 1267 (2006). Procedural due process imposes constraints on governmental decisions which deprive individuals of `liberty' or `property' interests within the meaning of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendment. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 332, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976). Under the Federal Constitution, analyzing a party's due process claim requires review of three factors: First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail. Id. at 335, 96 S.Ct. 893. The record reveals that the plaintiffs received all of the process to which they were constitutionally entitled. The board member at issue missed only two hearings over several years and he voted after having visited the site and reviewing applicable notes. [T]he Constitution does not [necessarily] require that all members of an administrative board must take part in every decision, or that the failure of one participating member to attend one hearing vitiates the entire process. Simard v. Board of Education of Town of Groton, 473 F.2d 988, 994 (2d Cir.1973). The plaintiffs mistakenly rely upon Petition of Grimm, 138 N.H. 42, 46-47, 635 A.2d 456 (1993), and Petition of Smith, 139 N.H. 299, 302-05, 652 A.2d 154 (1994), to support their argument. In Petition of Grimm, we examined an exception to the general rule that in administrative proceedings . . . an administrative officer may act on a written record of testimony by witnesses whom he has not personally seen or heard. Petition of Grimm, 138 N.H. at 46, 635 A.2d 456 (quotation omitted). In that case, we ruled that where the board elects to make factual determinations as a hearing panel and the record does not provide a reasonable basis for evaluating the kind of testimony in question, and the matter at issue turns upon witness credibility, due process requires all panel members deciding the case to be in attendance for all of the parties' testimony, plus any other testimony on the issue of credibility, in order to effectively assess the issue of credibility. Id. at 46-47, 635 A.2d 456. For similar reasons, we also applied this exception in Petition of Smith, 139 N.H. at 302-04, 652 A.2d 154. Both Petition of Grimm and Petition of Smith are factually dissimilar to the instant case. Here, unlike Petition of Grimm and Petition of Smith, the board's decision did not turn upon credibility. Nor did the board make findings about credibility. This case is thus unlike Petition of Grimm [and Petition of Smith ] in which the failure of board members to attend a hearing rendered them unable to resolve a crucial credibility contest. Appeal of Alton School Dist., 140 N.H. 303, 314, 666 A.2d 937 (1995).