EDWARDSVILLE – The Madison County Board acted on seven separate zoning requests at Wednesday’s regular meeting, denying two and approving five.

A request to keep bees, goats and double the allowed number of chickens on residential property; and to place a mobile home in the 1900 block of Roberta Drive in Granite City were denied by the full board, upholding previous decisions by the Building and Zoning Committee.

Steven Taylor and Kaitlyn Bryan, owners of property at 57 Odom Drive, Collinsville, had requested a special use permit to allow the keeping of bees, two goats and chickens; and a variance to allow them to keep 10 chickens instead of the five normally allowed.

Neighbors opposed the request, and submitted a petition against it.

The other denied request was for Danielle Trask and Joey Muscarella, who had requested a special use permit to place a mobile home at 1930 Roberta Avenue, Granite City, for Trask and her family.

A request by Mike Moniger of Moniger Excavating Co. Inc. to rezone a 4.54 acre tract at 5965 Illinois 140, Moro, to “B-4” Wholesale Business district from “PD” Planned Development District.

In February 2020 the County Board approved rezoning to a planned development district to allow a small-scale hemp processing facility, but the plans fell through, according to Planning & Development officials.

Nic Frey had requested a special use permit to allow the placement of a mobile home at 10115 Lower Marine Road, Marine.

Mark and Donna Sanders had requested a variance at 8411 Steelecrest Lane, Troy, to construct an attached garage 2 feet from the east property line, instead of the required 10 feet.

James and Patricia Radcliffe had requested a variance for 2635 Staunton Road, Troy, to construct an accessory structure in the front yard setback area in an “R-1” Single-Family Residential area.

Andrew Jones Jr., on behalf of the Southwestern Electric Cooperative Inc., had requested the rezoning of a half-acre tract at 4772 Illinois 4, Alhambra, to “PD” Planned Development District from “A” Agricultural District to operate a bitcoin mining facility using power from the existing electrical substation on site.

All the zoning requests must go to the Building & Zoning Committee and then to the full Madison County Board for approval.

The County Board also approved a resolution authorizing they payment of $8.5 million in ARPA funds for a “sewer interceptor for a large geographic area in the village of Bethalto.”

In other business, the board:

• Approved a contract for $112,396 with WWCS Inc. of Cottage Hills for the replacement of the parking lot at the Madison County Detention Home.

• Approved a resolution authorizing Madison County Community Development to submit 2023 weatherization grant program applications for approximately $950,000 in three separate programs.

• Approved a $15,000 loan to the Venice Park District for the remodeling of the kitchen and bathroom at the facility at 305 Broadway, Venice.

• Amended the 2021 Community Development Action Plan to allow the city of Venice to modify its grand fund usage for sewer lining projects in low and moderate income areas.

• Approved a resolution to appropriate $900,000 in Motor Fuel Tax Funds toward the improvement of Renken Road near Holiday Shores.

• Approved a resolution to spend $39,750 for professional services to determine property values for the reconstruction of Staunton Road form Illinois 143 south to Interstate 70.

Trained as a photojournalist, Scott Cousins has 40 years of experience covering all aspects of news, primarily in the Metro East. His primary beats for The Telegraph in Alton include Madison County government and criminal filings, and he remains committed to the idea that a newspaper's first responsibility is to inform the public about what government is doing.