The Sugar Creek Board of Aldermen on Monday night authorized a  bianco carrara controversial limestone mining application.

The aldermen voted 3-1 for a rezoning measure and a special-use permit for the operation. Alderman Dennis Onka was the lone opponent on both measures.

Mayor Stan Salva praised the aldermen, who, he said, had worked "to ensure that the project will not cause any loss in the quality of life of the people in the county."

Opponents of the project, many of them residents of Independence or eastern Jackson County who filled the city's small boardroom, were not reassured.

"Clearly we're disappointed that they have chosen money over the quality of life of their neighbors," said Lavonne Spicer, a member of Concerned Citizens of Cedar Crest, an opposition group.

Members will gather next week to "decide the next step," Spicer said.

In 2008, Lafarge Aggregates, a construction materials company, filed an application to run a limestone mining operation beneath Cedar Crest, a former dairy farm that recently was annexed into Sugar Creek.

The site is near hundreds of homes, an elementary school and several churches.

Many residents have opposed the application, citing dust and vibrations from blasting.

Company representatives, meanwhile, have said the project will have benefits, including royalties that will be paid to Sugar Creek for the rock removed. They also have pledged to vigorously monitor dust and vibration levels.

The operation will be subject to several conditions  honey onyx tiles. Those include completion of pre-blast surveys of the foundations of homes and other buildings within 500 feet of the mine's boundaries and penalties for violations of blasting limits, with any fines donated to the parent-teacher association of Elm Grove Elementary School, which is near the mining site.

"We have made several demands of Lafarge," said Salva, who added that the operation represents significant economic growth for Sugar Creek.

The development of underground commercial space, which would begin after the mining is completed, could create hundreds of jobs, he said.

Salva said residents of Sugar Creek were largely in favor of the project.

That didn't include Onka, who said after the vote that he wasn't as optimistic as his fellow aldermen.

"I just don't see the vision that they do," Onka said.

Salva said work on the mine pure white marble could begin this fall.