felt like in a st year lawyer i get all excited and butterflies they don't come up here very often the truth of the matter is that prior to yesterday i'd argue twice so today and tomorrow i'm doubling my time twenty five years so i thank you for that opportunity rulings he goes right down the line with everything we say until he gets to the end and what he says is because there's evidence that my client's predecessors knew that there has been a grab on this piece of property in the past they somehow were unreasonable in their reliance upon the county so let me step back for just one second what happened here was back in about two thousand and two my clients decided that they were interested in purchasing this property for the sole purpose of operating the ground so the in it in agreement with the current owners with the five year rocks in the close shortly after one of my clients predecessor steve ma autumn and then shortly after that his wife passed away leaving for orphaned children's some of whom are minors there was a time when they had to decide what are we going to do some are going to invest this money will that be invested better certificate was still valid they went to the county and they asked not step back for a nd prior to this they were in on another application they were asking for a non conforming use m three hundred and eighty dollars acre parcels thr joining parcels and in that application they wrote that this the use of prior use was agriculture and that part of it has had a gravel pit that's what they wrote there was opposition from the city and they were they were through the petition they knew that the city didn't want this this two hundred i think it's two hundred and forty acres or something like that they want us there so what they decided to do was they and it's a pile of stock books extracted from the ground in piled on the property and it sat there like that for since the seventy's so my clients knew that this was there they knew that there was an existing certificate to put people to involved they came in and talked about the current use spin agriculture and that they wanted to put a church on it they wanted to run a model here playing club on it all those things there's no evidence to show in the record that my clients knew any of this says there are several paragraphs one paragraph that really matters says there is a record of non conforming use for this crop and the use of storage has not been discontinued in the position it is the position of the department that the n i c u is still valid she clearly based that decision on these distance of storage still on the property something that my clients believe to be true in addition there was a affidavit of non conforming use that my clients requested of the current oh there's that their attorney put together for them and the current owners signed it they swore and how would my clients know whether or not that was true so looking at it with the piles on the property the presumption assumption is it must be that so if that's the assumption who did x who do you go to and say fine yes the current owners know you go to the county you go to the party the entity that is responsible for issuing the certificate it's your certificate is it valid tell us not reasonable for that party to rely upon the county's only plan by means only to and believe that it's still valid and their purpose was they needed that certificate in order to operate the gr says because there's continuous stories it is valid so then what happens we buy the property right we separate compare the property we're not ready yet completely mining the property but we start doing was still occurring on the lot then the non conforming you certificate was valid and they are following my climate but still continue to operate if there was no stories on that it may they have been very so clearly the county's position is based on the presence of story not anything else they wrote in a letter in august of two thousand and seven and they made an oral statement that was recorded in the newspaper in october of because because you wrote a letter after this is the article that said you may not it may have been abandoned you may be limited to just or what i have no idea what the legal basis would be two for the county to limit to cut off some of the uses and limited to only one you either abandon the certificate or you don't you either get all the uses or you don't in that case as it is being or versus village of algonquin i believe i might have the wrong site there but the point is equipment to move ground to money on that property in two thousand and ten the next action by the county is in two thousand and fifteen it's five years later they do nothing for five the non conforming use for the two hundred and forty acres and we say to that location in the record judge great question so these because of that before they in there did this and before they realized that they knew it was being well so the current owners were in the gravel pit operates that's not what they did right but they did salad they did move property they stored property who knew what their future payment was nobody knew until inconsistent in testimony before getting v a but how do we know that we want to match the current owners this is going over it's in the record we went home and as the current owners and said hey have any of these things on the non conforming use been ongoing and they said was sure four or five of those things and i don't think this stinks of scott's life you know what they did was when they went to the prior application they didn't realize that the non conforming use includes storage and includes did nothing so when we do we continue to do those things and we continue to invest in the property that's a classic piece of lapses in the piece because the county and the city argued that the county of u p d versus k five and if you read the facts and count your page the county's going to come up here and argue they're going to say wait a minute the owner in that case was actually selling property to the county sure that's more but it doesn't go anywhere in there save the county hadn't been buying that gravel we would have found differently because those letters because those notice because those communications were sent in this case the f l m in that case to five can construct a five construction and they reasonably long history and a lot of facts in this in this case ethel m purchase the property from the steves and the scotts in two thousand and seven and it shortly before purchasing it they approached the planning and zoning department and asked for an opinion continue to do one or more of the nonconforming uses and importantly that they never discontinued any of the non conforming uses that's what it said no discontinuation of nonconforming uses and it was drafted by athens attorney we detail in our but the only way they could have been deceived is if they completely ignored the knowledge they had at the time like their asking this court to do with regards to the two instances that really show their knowledge prior to us or the two thousand and one special use application and then the two thousand and two sales thought that was the case when they applied for the special use they would have said that that would have been a great argument for why they should expand mining to the two adjacent parcels and if there was active mining on that property at the time they made the special use then why would the cases that we've discussed mr spamhaus keeps talking about you know if you have as long as one long as one use continues then it's valid but that that's not what that he's not regarding mines shows at all there are a couple cases saying present in all of their one enterprise there was active stores there are all these active things and i think when you get to abandon this one you just absolutely aren't using it in this case it had been used for these things for fourteen years i mean i tend the time at that active storage is that actually being used or is it more like i think in some one of arguments you give the example of a building that was used as a restaurant at one time then they stopped property and restaurant the buildings  great it's not being used it's been it's not still you wouldn't say well that that building's been there for fifteen years so it's still being used as a restaurant there's no active storage and i think that's really where it comes into play and not using any storage the sellers in that contract for training we came to uses only for the property they retain the right to farm it and they retain the right for the model airplane to operate they did not retain the right to use the right right but they can tax contractual rights and they do not have a contractual right to use that property for five years prior to purchase for a single one of the not conforming uses in the certificate and yet knowing that f l saying they couldn't reasonably lying opinion that they knew was based on false information they can't have attained equitable release the latches and the stop of that they're asking for if they acted with an enhanced by presenting about false information to the i notice that it's there i don't know that anyone's talked about that to date so they would have been on notice that it's there and if they wanted to use it they would have it think the fact that again they  and i want to emphasize a couple things are important to the review of the situation and it's imperative that you understand this is a unique situation that will never i can assure you will never rise again and nonconformity users if it is very clearly said that it was only used good as until the use on the property was abandoned for a period of six months and once that was done it can't come back now attorney cheryl says her cd in the fact that that was that that was abandoned we're not arguing that anymore well it's convenient for him and his argument to simplify things by saying that what the everybody thought the use it didn't and obviously there was a test pilot gravel that was taken out and left there and there was testimony at the at the hearing by a general manager of another gravel company that it was his understanding that the original owner had abandoned any mining activity or an intent to do any mining activity on that eighty acres because of the hue and cry that would would have been brought up by the news we intend not to do anything else with it but residential residential uses and development at the best now did we know that at the at the time that all these events were taking place with that the zoning process that doesn't make any sense they knew they suspected these are sophisticated business people now this is and you should just go next door these people understood that there was a risk here so what did they do what they did was they steves came in for a special use permit they said we wanted farve model airplanes off and in that testimony mr steve says we don't have any intention ever mind this thing we don't want in fact the only one who's fighter planes on it in fact that pile of gravel over there that's a nuisance kids are running up and down on their bikes there's there's needles out there people are coming out of your part i intend to turn that down and use that gravel as a parking lot for the people who are going to use into a fog your contract is a five year five year option to buy the pot contract by the broker so what happens is that they decide as they get closer and closer to the deadline and now they're right up against  you know publish it there was never anything said that it had been published in the paper or somebody reserve valer your post office or anything like that there's always the possibility that they were buying this property with all of its works that at some point somebody was go interesting is every letter this issue has the same conditional language and so do this with and that's the most important thing of all he talks about her letter then goes on to say however if there had been any abandonment of the meaning telling the conditionally if there is if we find out that it hasn't been abandoned for six months or more the non conforming your certificate is no more and in fact it was no more and she was right to tell him that they knew that they knew that when they presented that affidavit to try to try to convince her that there had been at least for the last fourteen years mining activity that took place on the property when in fact it never had in mr she came in later on  you know what he said was i think he loved it in with the testimony that related to the activities of f l m up to that point and include in the affidavit that was that it was difficult for him not to believe that they were aware that the non conforming you certificate had been a man and prior to that and that was really what what he felt was when it came to knowledge they had knowledge that there it was likely that the nazi non conforming you certificate had been abandoned hands that's why they decided that if they're going to roll the dice they're going to tilt the table in their favor by doing this affidavit and that's exactly what they did and i think that's exactly what the trial court felt and that's and that and i was i recall that was once a trial or ruled was we can't escape the fact that they had to have some knowledge of the fact that the non conforming use had been abandoned either the county's records or what was in the sea or or scott's prior testimony what the new tefillin he didn't say that anything with respect for what caesar's god created some sort of knowledge on only one day that there was continue storage on the property that's it the letters i read those both of the letter in the public statement that's all they relied upon by their own admission and the letter s characterize mr schroeder is that he says but is however it does say that the letter will the best it says in any letter is that if it's renovated more than six months it's no good and that's true nobody disputes that the letter actually comes valid certificate not performing it was right that it's recordings with the county is that still good so who do you go s you go ask the department and the department now once to take its records things that were in its possession at the time that they gave the answer and impute somehow knowledge to my clients that they should know what was in the department's records what if the department didn't know what was in their records they should the said i don't know we don't know doesn't matter and my thought is it doesn't matter if you look at that five k five case in that case the court decided it was a baby ended and not only was it abandoned it was abandoned by the same people who were in there trying to say wait a minute here whether it's abandoned or not is a red here is smoke and mirrors both council continue to throw out there with respect to these stop arguing the only issue on the stop list in the act reasonably and the standard  is undisputed we know what this the law is on the stop and that's on this feud it and the issue is whether the facts satisfy the statutory standard or whether the rule of law as applied to the historical facts is or is not vi what you need to do i think is you look at the established facts no question the facts are in does this amount to a stop with respect to reasonable as the cases say normally a question of fact accord can determine whether the reliance was reasonable as a matter of law when no trier of fact could find that it was unreasonable to rely on the alleged statements or when only one conclusion came drawn come count one last sentence please counsel i'm sorry your honour's there is nothing more reasonable when you're looking to find out the fact the liturgy of a license or certificate then should go to the party of the issue that certificate or license