Opinion ID: 1954124
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Waiver of TenLot Requirement

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).