Volume 107 — New Hampshire Reports

1. Where a municipal zoning ordinance designed to establish a "Lake Residence District" as primarily residential in character provided that limited commercial use restricted to uses for "gas sales, boat liveries, and grocery facilities" "may" be permitted provided the application and site meet the approval of a voluntary lake improvement association, the selectmen and the board of adjustment, it was held the establishment of a "special exception" was intended (RSA 31:72 II) rather than a "variance" requiring a showing of "special conditions" resulting in "unnecessary hardship" (RSA 31:72 III). 2. In such case, since the statutory enabling act (RSA <cross_reference>31:60</cross_reference>-89) under which the ordinance was adopted vests in the board of adjustment the power to "make special exceptions to the terms of the ordinance" (Ib., s. 66) the ordinance provision purporting to grant such power to the lake improvement association and the selectmen of the town in addition to the board of adjustment was held to be an unlawful delegation of authority. 3. So also, the delegation of such authority to the municipal zoning board of adjustment was held to be defective for failure to establish standards by which the board should be governed in determining whether an exception should be made. 4. In such case it was held that while the ordinance provision for delegation of authority of approval was invalid, the prohibition against commercial use in such district in the absence of the specified approval was separable and valid.

1. The question submitted to the voters by the Legislature (Const., Pt. II, Art. 100 (supp)) upon proposed amendments to the Constitution, Pt. II, Arts. 3, 15, "Do you favor having the legislature meet in two annual sessions with a total limit of ninety days but no limit on time of adjournment?" was held to be obscure and misleading in failing to disclose that the ninety-day limit proposed was for ninety legislative and not calendar days, and in conveying the idea that a new limit would be imposed upon the length of "two annual sessions" when in fact it would continue the existing limit upon mileage payments only, although extending it to a span of two annual sessions, and hence the proposed amendments to Articles 3 and 15 of Part II of the Constitution were held not to have been validly adopted by the voters. 2. However, it was held that the amendments proposed by the concluding phrase of such question seeking approval or disapproval of amendments removing existing limits on the length of adjournment by the Legislature (Const., Pt. II, Arts. 19, 36) were validly adopted where such amendments had no peculiar relationship to annual sessions and were not dependent upon nor interwoven with amendment of the other Articles, and hence remain unaffected by the failure to effectively amend Articles 3 and 15 of Part II of the Constitution. 3. While every reasonable presumption is to be indulged in favor of the validity of an amendment to the Constitution following its ratification by the voters, the clearly expressed intent of the voters must prevail over any undisclosed purpose.