don't look at our watches but we have to keep it in arresting so don't repeat yourself i can assure you we read the briefs pull the print pieces and look at the print portions of the record there's no need to go into what happened just start with your strongest point first and any time you're i thank you your honor i'd like to save five minutes for a bottle of a certain is appropriate iran is to begin this argument it would be most helpful to look at the zoning map for the city of burbank that's found at appendix page one ninety one the upper right hand corner we have highlighted three things in the code everything else is just the code itself what we've highlighted is the property in question which is  in the center of the page with with the alley showing that it's blue and that's the property that the church is trying to back we've highlighted the burbank man  presbyterian church in red which is just to the north mediately to the east say to albert the great catholic church which is the largest area but the green and the blue in the red outlines are not part of the quote the right represents everything that zoned residential the blue the pale blue is the commercial zoning there are a couple  things that we can learn just by looking at the zoning map first that the property is not in a commercial zone it's designed commercial but it's bad zone it's one user one piece of property it's own commercial not adjacent or even close to any other commercial properties it's surrounded entirely by residences there is a township  office next door that's the only non residential use but it is a noncommercial use and then of course there are the two churches a one very large church with set set the character of the neighborhood as a residential zone  there's our run single family residence district as as well as as are and then there's an ira too so there's i don't quite  the standard for review here your honour's is a de novo there are no contested facts at this point in the litigation i were seeking a facial interpretation over the zoning the original the courts have said again and again that in testing a vested rights you look at the code at the time that a party makes that steps in reliance on that particular code  say we don't have a vested right but under illinois law ready in conjunction with the ordinance we believe we have a vested right because we believe that at the time we applied that the equal protection clause which said you can have business associations labor associations civic associations social associations fraternal a uses that the equal protection clause required that religious associations be permitted and there is there are a lot of cases on this equal protection argument rooting river river of river of life which is to say that in the briefs which say where you have associations and assemblies of a non religious like nature equal protection requires that you allow offer i don't think the skokie case that addressed facts like this but originally authorized we take to mean or should be extended to mean authorized by the or and or there were no laws and or illinois constitution because those are higher laws and they need to be read in conjunction with the the city ordinance and if the city ordinance is contrary and we believe that that was wrongly decided that this court should not follow it unfortunately they did not allow oral argument in that in that case and they would have avoided hopefully two mistakes that were made first of all there's a doctrine called void ab initio which means an unconstitutional statute has no effect the there's another line of cases that say if a court hasn't made the session concerning an ordinance people can't be prosecuted or held accountable for following an ordinance this is where policeman might follow an ordinance allowing them to rest and later or or s supreme court and it's in many circumstances where the laws are unconstitutional people do not have to follow of if they choose to fear to ignore them a do so at their risk and all that's right and your rest so in this case under that theory and warrant you are your client that you are proceeding at their risk to argue in front of a court and if you were had a probability of getting his own or being ordinances you don't we have we have to probabilities first of all there are numerous cases in the river of life case which the seventh circuit on bach it's a very recent case two thousand and ten addresses this very issue of churches in commercial zones and says where you have a commercial zone that allows assembly uses you must allow religious assembly is so one you're relying on i see it in our three and in our food yeah it's a permitted use in our three in our four two hundred three but under the code at the time the church contracted to purchase it was a special use was specially permitted specially permitted means that you have to go through a hearing process before the city and they can grant your permit illinois law is explicit and this is the living word out bitch which is another case that we have with the illinois supreme court said a special use is presumed compatible with the surrounding properties and so the church had to probabilities of success we believe one is the fact that other assemblies were allowed the second is that it was a special  ordinance and special uses are presumed compatible so there was a presumption that the church would be allowed so under either of those two legal theories we feel that there was a probability of issuance of a building p don't recollect any and your first three day period is up the twenty seventh is that right i know we've already put up additional earnest money to hold the contracts so we had mission earliest money and so th right yeah but the church did not argue in that case of vested rights argument and vested rights the federal courts have said are you determined by state court as you asked about the petra case and i didn't mean treated religious membership organizations worse than membership organizations most of violating not only our l u a peeve of the first amendment that argument here isn't that that's what that's your argument here is it just yes right so  certainly does and that issue wasn't before him and he said he went to the hear the case the illinois supreme court case which we think is a very important case and he brought that case in and did not have that briefed and there were no there was no adamant on it the healey case says that if heidi's entitled to rely on the existing code at least until there's an amendment a favor by not ruling on it but he really shouldn't have ruled on something that wasn't before him and an argument that wasn't wasn't made and we think he was wrong that if if you looked at the healey case he would see that it what i'm just saying instead he kicked it over to the illinois courts and said the argument concerning vested rights is an illinois law decision and that's the ruling that's why petra does not apply to this situation even though there is there is a victim that's worth worth considering in civil liberties which is that your rises while these cases say civil liberties two thousand three  properties under contract at that point that the properties that they had contracted to buy were long gone it was it was three or four years after that after they had and that's why we appreciate this court taking the case at this point because when somebody is buying a property particularly a minority church they're very vulnerable that's what it's like a woman in in the way they're being attacked there's there's nothing you can do except dream out to the courts told me they're changing the law on this in the middle we've got a contract we've got an option we've been looking for years a property has been vacant we do the same thing to the municipalities when the courts of review get involved in the eagles the boy scouts rock and thrown out why can't why should we do then you can apply the new ordinance but for vested rights you apply the ordinance at the time that the perry acts in reliance on them existing law we court on page seven of i replied brief the illinois supreme court if i may if i may read this is cross court vs evanston where an individual or corporation expense abstentions sums relying on the van existing zoning and zoning ordinances and proceeds to seek a permit in compliance with them it would be a grave injustice and they read this zoning code and it says only african americans and caucasians can live in this residential area asians are bad they can go ahead and ignore that law at their pe exactly and then they they go to an attorney they get advice to say nothing but not only can by the by the house but if the city changes the law and says it's now in manufacturing to strict whites can't live there blacks can't live there agents can't live there you still have a vested right because it's legal at this point for asians to buy a house not because the ordinance says so but because the illinois law the illinois constitution the u s cason solution the supreme court have all said  one is churches must be allowed somewhere must be permitted use somewhere but the second is the equal protection argument where you have non religious assemblies business associations professional associations you must allow a rigid religious associations and the law void and maybe i misspoke there what it means is the out the law i of the content of what's going on whether they're studying books as a civic association or a social group knights of columbus they have various things they're discussing but it's not it's too much of an potentially tax exempt for colonel associations they're just discussing political issues and different things and that's what that's what a religious assembly does and that's why the courts have been please the court the morning here on earth before we get to the merits infested rights and in the couple of questions you are the justice murphy was asking i'd like to touch base on the standing issue particularly in light of the fact that this wasit was one day old when the motion for plymouth marry was denied as this court is aware we've made the argument that somebody who was a mere contract purchaser who has a contract that's contingent on where the owner doesn't doesn't climb aboard the lawsuit doesn't have standing at this point if they clearly on the property they do if the owner joins in the lawsuit which is typical is only litigation one of two things happens and so these either chose not to ask them to be involved or maybe old barney frank received trustee chose not to get involved in it you say that for us to agree with you and again and this every piece of after hello a funeral home or school yes they had i don't have a better prospect to sell this property so i will hang in there with the church see if they win their case i'm willing to take that market contract purchaser and the zoning allows it all i need to get is a building permit and the city horses me around and then flips the zoning then i've got a vested right in the existing zoning to fulfill my contract on the other hand when a individual has a contract to purchase properties and it's subject to rezoning like this one is the case as it seems to me say the only right that purchaser has is the buy th property he doesn't have he doesn't have and first of all land use rights why because he's not the land user he doesn't own the property and when the church attempted to make the distinction with respect to the special years versus resulting in may that in their reply brief at least one of the cases that i cited your honor is a special use case in that state the pastoral homes were says county a two page what is your position a switch or not supplies  clearly the new ordinance applies in this case and i and we kind of i think i made my point that standing don't mean you can make a decision not vested in the vest we start at the at the the different than the general assembly and that with the exception of the specified rights business the court has to take the case in light of the legislation as it exists on the day of a decision what rights factor in your honor is a very narrow exception and we always have to say vested right in what and i think that's where the churches argument falls off this track the going back to that skokie case  it's really that cause that c e o s versus i think evanston case the that really starts this factory if a property owner expends money in reliance on the probability of a building permit being  issued and that expenditure is substantial and the reliance is reasonable and he has a vested right but vested right and once vested right in the existing zoning and in order to have that would not exist in terms of the eight or nine point balancing test that we get to your honor see this back in the days when there was development in the review when zoning cases in this case in order for the church to have a vested right to build a church churches must have been a permitted land use in the particular zoning classification that was laid over this property this property had a seat commercial zoning district classification churches are not permitted uses in a c classification that in our view certainly  and more bound by past precedent when there's really no flesh on the bones to say to say well the burbank cases distinguishable from belgium for this reason that reason then the other reason words which were two steps out of the starting gate so i think in terms of th court's determination of likelihood of success on the merits of the president that staring the church in the face is even more compelling here and the court needs to rely on it even more in saying that there is at this point there is no likelihood of success merits you would argue there is well even if we were to rely on the previous ordinance which is not that even if the even if they were right and it was approved that the previously on amended ordinance apply they really it is best advice thing is really did say it's a it's a reliance doctrine as far as i can tell that it's reasonable for me to rely on burbank zoning if it's a permitted use for me to build the three things so on the i've got the architectural plans  going to build in the three flat everything's done i start to dig the hole and all the sudden the city's as you know what we want that single family well we'll wait a bit i've got reasonable rights here because your long burbank tells me that i can do it and i can rely on that so i guess justice quinn that's a long way to answer your question to say that the best advice doctor and i had the ordinance been under mended which still apply in this case because it has to be a permitted used to get that there's you allow the democratic club of bremen township the boys club the the the lions club those are all assemblies because people get there to talk politics or talk the experiences or get drunk or do whatever and you can't distinguish church because we do exactly the same thing except the subject matter is different that's what makes that's what gives these makes that was rewarding this is vulnerable the fact of the matter is a lot of times the zoning ordinance are fifty years old seventy five years old back and let the world war two where there was a v f w hall american legion hall local government now and it's not just burbank and hazel crest everywhere you know we're in freefall for economics i mean every time we turn around a business is closing down and preservation of the commercial tech space is a legitimate goal and the seventh circuit in the river right the on bond specifically holds that preservation of businesses there is a totally legitimate thing for a local government to do and it doesn't discriminate against the church the fact they had the fact that the the church had a contract to buy this property and date they thought they had a winning lawsuit i mean it's really it's really what the church to say here we took a look at it we took a look at the zoning ordinance we have to go through special years but we've got a flaw that we think we can we can win the case i made that may or may not have been true but the landscape has changed because the municipality has changed the ordinance i'd like to i'd like to talk a little bit about the argument that opposing counsel made regarding human beings and you know if a nation try to buy a house if you wish it's its own zoning property on the basis of human beings is never acceptable and religion color of skin or anything that's land rights segregating land uses it is the essence of zoning no factories in a residential district no homes no hands in a commercial district no tax exempt entities i'm one of the few pieces of commercial property less left in the municipality that is not that's not discrimination on the basis of land users that is the essential function of municipal zoning and it may be your honour's that will be back here in two or three years if the church decides to close on the property or make an arrangement we litigate the case and a decision will be made as to whether the plaintiff has overcome the presumption of the liberty of the municipal zoning decision then and a trial court has that notwithstanding that what the city did a church is a completely appropriate land use here regardless of the commercial concerns the tax concerns or the normal zoning stuff of traffic that sort of thing maybe the win the case but that's that's for that's after a trial on the basis of what we have here in the light of the precedent that is staring the church in the face and as i mentioned it in the complete absence of any any record at all for that purpose  primary in transition but i don't mean by saying that that anybody should worry that we're going to toss the software we've treated this up as as porn as we can but i appreciate that but i'm just making the point that up in this context a policeman or injunction is to allow a land use to be built in an area that violates the municipal zoning ordinance in the absence of any record and i think that's that would be a inappropriate overreach on the part of an appellate court in the context of the now because again your time's running out does it not you have some thirty four days or so by my count to before you have to buy or not buy a preliminary injunction that would do would probably give us the confidence to go ahead and close that we have  as i said we're vulnerable we have a lender anybody who's buying property is vulnerable to this type of hostile attack by a community that their lender could back out the seller could back out the congregation could have second thought my point is very no worse things in  property what has been vacant for two years says no there is clearly no commercial demand for it in the last two years and what demand there will be in the future will depend on the on the zoning and so the church can put the property on the market and take th proving hostility in a in a racial ethnic situation these days everybody's smart enough to say no it's about real estate taxes or whatever the constitution would you see  a quite possibly of what i want to point out is the cats the two sion and these federal civil laws and the illinois civil rights laws are impact laws they are laws that say if there is a racial impact if there's an ethnic impact because a legislature recognized this in the past two should recognize that people aren't going to just say well gee we don't want to spandex and we're telling you get out of town then make up something and then fact the truth is there are all kinds of different motivations and we can't prove what's in the heart of each person but the law doesn't require that the law protects against it's fact the court the illinois civil rights act it's the it's the effect  d again i just suggest you to to look at the date when the next fifteen thousand dollars is due if you wish to proceed on those days