Vlahos Realty Co. v. Little Boar's Head District, 101 N.H. 460, 464, 146 A.2d 257, 261 (1958); Appeal of Barefoot, 437 Pa. 323, 263 A.2d 321 (1970); Haba v. Cuff, 201 N.E.2d 343, 346 (Ohio App. 1963); 2 Rathkopf, The Law of Zoning and Planning 46-4, 57-1, 57-6 (1964); 101 C.J.S. Zoning s. 314 (1958). See Suprenant v. Nashua, 101 N.H. 43, 131 A.2d 632 (1957). Having thus acquired a variance or nonconforming use to use their fourteen acre tract as a picnic and camping park, any regulation of the New London zoning ordinance which would prevent that use did not apply to their fourteen acre tract.
Bouley v. Nashua, supra. See Suprenant v. Nashua, 101 N.H. 43. In this situation, these and subsequent findings that literal enforcement of the ordinance would result in unnecessary hardship, and that granting the variance would result in substantial justice and would not be contrary to the spirit of the ordinance, were supported by the record.
At the hearing before the Superior Court, the evidence tended to show that the defendant's lot was undesirable for residential purposes, and that the proposed filling station use would not substantially injure adjoining properties or be contrary to the public interest. See Suprenant v. Nashua, 101 N.H. 43. Considering the record as a whole, neither the board nor the Court can be held as a matter of law to have erred or to have acted unreasonably (RSA 31:78), in deciding that "owing to [the] special conditions [arising out of the situation of the defendant's lot] a literal enforcement of . . . the ordinance will result in unnecessary hardship . . . ." RSA 31:72 III. "The facts being found, the action to be taken thereon is prescribed by law.
Courts have often taken a view in zoning appeal cases, regardless of whether one was taken by the board, and such evidence is often significant. Suprenant v. Nashua, 101 N.H. 43, 45. The 1949 amendment (Laws 1949, c. 278, s. 2) which changed the procedure in some respects on appeals did not change RSA 31:85 which provides in part that "the court may take evidence . . . ." No limitation on this procedure is expressed or implied anywhere in RSA ch. 31, and s. 82, in stating that "All additional evidence received may be, considered by the court," unquestionably contemplates that the Court may receive additional evidence.