It might be December or January before residents know whether a limestone mining proposal can move forward in Sugar Creek.

About 50 protesters demonstrated Monday night outside Sugar Creek City Hall, where a new evidence hearing represented the latest installment in a long-running debate over the proposed subsurface mining operation.

Last year Lafarge Aggregates, a construction materials company, filed a rezoning request to mine limestone underneath a former dairy farm called Cedar Crest.

Last December, the city’s planning and zoning commission recommended against the rezoning request. Its 6-3 vote came during the last of four public meetings where opponents gave often-emotional testimony.

The 160-acre mining site is surrounded by hundreds of homes in Independence and unincorporated Jackson County, as well as several churches and an elementary school. Opponents fear a continuation of the dust and blasting vibrations that they associate with a separate Lafarge operation beneath a golf course.