Do "Professional and Business Offices" Include Plumbers and Electricians? New Hampshire Supreme Court Says Yes (Swanzey)
When a New Hampshire zoning ordinance permits "professional and business offices," does the phrase capture only doctors, lawyers, and accountants, or does it also reach offices used by plumbers, electricians, and other trades?
Background
All Purpose Storage West Swanzey, LLC (Applicant) sought to build eight commercial buildings on its Swanzey (Town) property, totaling 61,200 square feet and divided into 30-by-60-foot units, each with a bay door. Most of the property sits within the Town's Business District.
Applicant filed a two-lot subdivision and site plan review application describing a multi-tenant services facility leased to plumbing, electrical, and roofing companies. Tenants might also do some fabrication or assembly on site - a light industrial component. The application acknowledged specific tenants might need further Town approvals.
Sharee Howard (Abutter) owns the immediately adjoining property. After the planning board approved the project as a permitted services use, she appealed to the ZBA.
The ZBA rejected the services use label but approved the project under a different permitted category in the Swanzey Zoning Ordinance - "professional and business offices." The ZBA denied her rehearing request, and she appealed to the superior court.
Superior Court
Before the superior court, Abutter argued the project belongs in the "industrial park" category, which requires a special exception, because "professional and business offices" reaches only traditional professional offices like doctors, attorneys, and accountants. She added the bay-door design, unit size, and references to fabrication and assembly point to industrial use, and the buildings' capacity to host unauthorized industrial activity renders the project non-compliant.
Applicant and the Town defended the ZBA's reading. The conjunction "and" expands the category to include both professional offices and business offices generally, including offices serving the trades. The proper inquiry focuses on the use presented in the application, not speculation about future tenant conduct.
The superior court agreed with Applicant and the Town. It focused on the conjunction "and" between "professional" and "business offices" and read the phrase to allow both professional offices and offices any business - including a trade - might establish to support its work. It also observed a future tenant whose use deviates from a permitted use may require additional local approvals.
Abutter appealed.
Supreme Court
The Court agreed "and" signals legislative intent to allow both professional offices and business offices in the Business District. Abutter's narrower reading would write "and business" out of the ordinance. New Hampshire courts give effect to every word and do not add words the drafters omitted.
On the speculative-use argument, future and potentially unauthorized uses a building might accommodate do not measure whether an ordinance permits the building. The Court drew an analogy to a house in a residential zone: the theoretical possibility of commercial use does not make the structure impermissible.
Specific tenant uses deviating from a permitted category may trigger further local approvals, but speculation does not defeat present compliance.
Key takeaways
The decision reinforces a text-first approach to ordinance interpretation and disciplines reviewing bodies to evaluate the use described in the application, not the universe of uses a structure could host.
For developers and property owners, multi-tenant commercial projects designed for trade-related office activity have a defensible path in districts permitting "professional and business offices," even when the building envelope could support broader uses.
For abutters, challenges built on speculative future tenant conduct will struggle absent evidence the structure can only accommodate unauthorized uses.
Howard v. Town of Swanzey, No. 2025-0155 (non-precedential order) (N.H. June 23, 2026)
(Because the Court issued an “order” rather than an “opinion,” the ruling has no precedential authority over other cases, but it may provide guidance on how New Hampshire courts may approach similar issues in the future.)
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