Court Opinion

ID: 9709581
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:51:48.809644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:50.333866
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE WEBBER, specially concurring: I concur in the result reached in the principal opinion but I cannot abide easily with all it has to say on the pantomorphic subject of aesthetics in zoning. That matter is far less clear and settled than the principal opinion would lead us to believe. It admits that its principal authority, La Salle (1974), is ambiguous, and further admits that “this case does not involve rezoning.” Under the doctrine of County of Lake v. MacNeal (1962), 24 Ill. 2d 253, 181 N.E.2d 85, there can be some question of the right of the defendant here to contest the validity of the ordinance as applied to its property. It is less than clear why the city of Champaign, as shown in the preamble thereof, elected to make the sign ordinance part of its zoning ordinance. As a home rule unit under article VII, section 6, of the 1970 Constitution (Ill. Const. 1970, art. VII, §6), the city had adequate power to enact a sign ordinance independent of any zoning laws. The fact that the city chose a particular method of pigeonholing the sign ordinance should not serve as a predicate for a dissertation on a subject not directly involved. The heart of this case is that the defendant knowingly violated the sign ordinance. To that extent there is a difference from MacNeal, where the defendants were relying upon a prior adjudication of a nonconforming use and the principal question was the breadth of language in the prior decree. In the instant case, the defendant had no semblance of justification for a deliberate violation except insofar as it appears to say that it will obey only such laws as it itself deems just.