## Facts

- Simplex Technologies, Inc. owned a 92-acre industrial-zoned parcel in Newington, New Hampshire, used for manufacturing for decades.
- The parcel lay between the Piscataqua River and Woodbury Avenue, which functioned as a boundary between industrial and commercial zoning districts.
- Properties along and across Woodbury Avenue had been rezoned or developed for commercial uses, including shopping malls and other retail businesses.
- Simplex sought to commercially develop 6.2 acres of its frontage along Woodbury Avenue, a use not permitted in the industrial zone.
- Simplex applied to the Town of Newington Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) for a use variance; the ZBA denied the request.
- The superior court affirmed the denial, and Simplex appealed.

## Issues

1. What legal standard governs “unnecessary hardship” for a use variance under New Hampshire law.
2. Whether the existing “unnecessary hardship” formulation was unlawfully restrictive and should be reformulated.
3. Whether the ZBA and trial court applied the correct hardship standard to Simplex’s variance request.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the superior court’s judgment affirming the ZBA’s denial.
- The court rejected the prior “unnecessary hardship” formulation as too restrictive and adopted a new, more flexible three-part test.
- The court remanded for reconsideration of the variance application under the new standard, leaving fact-finding to the ZBA.

## Legal Principles

- “Unnecessary hardship” for a use variance is shown by proof:
  - that the restriction, as applied, interferes with the landowner’s reasonable use of the property, considering the property’s unique setting in its environment;
  - that no fair and substantial relationship exists between the ordinance’s general purposes and the specific restriction on the property; and
  - that the variance would not injure the public or private rights of others.
- The hardship inquiry is not limited to near-total deprivation of value or a threshold comparable to a constitutional taking.
- Variances function as a statutory safety valve and must be assessed in light of the parcel’s actual context and the ordinance’s purposes as applied.

## Conclusion

The court replaced New Hampshire’s prior, highly restrictive use-variance hardship doctrine with a three-part standard focused on reasonable use in the property’s unique setting, lack of a fair and substantial relationship to zoning purposes, and absence of injury to others, and it remanded for renewed review under that standard.


Simplex Techs., Inc. v. Town of Newington, 145 N.H. 727, 766 A.2d 713 (N.H. 2001)