ASHLAND — Council approved an Enterprise Zone Agreement with real estate company MBH Acres LLC of Cincinnati during its meeting Tuesday evening.

IF & O Products LLC and Feed Fat Co. LLC are expanding their business, which currently is based in New Ulm, Minnesota. The business is moving into the former Americarb building on Faultless Drive, which has been sitting empty for about two years. The company manufactures fat supplements for cows and pigs.

The agreement gives MBH Acres a 75 percent reduction in real property tax for 10 years in exchange for creating 10 new full-time jobs within three years.

Kathy Goon, director of Ashland Economic Development, said the company plans to provide 10 jobs with an annual salary of $800,000.

“You can do the math. Those are some pretty good-paying jobs,” Goon said.

Goon said the company had previously been looking at building in another Ohio city until they ran into complications and started looking elsewhere.

“This is really exciting for us,” Goon said.

The company plans to invest a total of $7 million in Ashland — $2.2 million for the building, $1.4 million for new construction, $700,000 for building improvements, $2 million in machinery and equipment, $200,000 in furniture and fixtures and $500,000 in inventory.

The construction is planned to be under way by Nov. 1 and be finished within a year.

Zoning issues addressed

Council voted in favor of ordinances being put on the agenda for the first meeting in November to handle three zoning requests from the Planning Commission.

The first request was for Brookside Golf Course and Brookside West Park to be zoned R-L Residential District. Neither piece of property has ever been zoned.

The second request was for the city’s wastewater treatment plant to be zoned M-1 Light Industrial.

The final request was for the 30 acres on Sandusky Street which recently were annexed to the city to be zoned R-L Residential District.

House Bill 49 addressed

City Finance Director Larry Paxton asked council to consider passing an ordinance to join other municipalities in suing the State of Ohio because of House Bill 49 which was passed last year. The bill allows the state to collect municipal profit-loss income taxes and then disperse it back to cities.

One major issue, Paxton said, is the potential for delay in the city receiving the money from the state.

“That profit loss tax equals about $1 million in city revenues. There is much discussion about when the tax commissioner, if it is paid through them, when the money would then be returned to the city,” Paxton said. “I assure you that if today there was a tax check that was taken in by the Division of Taxation of the city of Ashland today, it’s already in the bank.”

Ashland is a charter city, which means it has its own charter, essentially its own constitution, outlining how the city is to be run.

“I believe, as well as 116 of my counterparts across the state of Ohio, that this is wrong for the state of Ohio to dictate what and how municipalities should tax its residents or its businesses,” Paxton said. 

Paxton said it will cost Ashland about $2,000 to join the coalition.

Paxton said more than 100 other cities and villages have joined the coalition. Mansfield council voted Tuesday night to take part in the coalition.

Council members said they would consider the ordinance.