A Volvo supplier is considering locating in Orangeburg County, bringing more than 70 full-time jobs and investing at least $5 million.
Orangeburg County Council passed a resolution Monday committing the county to negotiate fee-in-lieu of taxes and special source revenue credit incentives with the company.
The company is currently only being discussed publicly under the name Project Mohawk.
Orangeburg County Attorney D’Anne Haydel detailed the agreement, saying, “Project Mohawk is a Volvo supplier and, of course, Volvo has its headquarters in Sweden.
“The company intends to lease a 30,000-square-foot building in Orangeburg in which it’s going to conduct its initial warehousing and then manufacturing operations focusing on welding and product assembly.”
In exchange for the investment, the county is planning to tax Project Mohawk at a 6 percent assessment ratio at a rate of 370.1 mills for 30 years, she said. The typical assessment ratio for business in South Carolina is 10.5 percent.
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Also during the meeting:
• Council approved two bids for landscape maintenance at county property and an industrial park. An aggregate bid of $12,697.61 was approved. The aggregate was the combination of both prices offered by New Image Landscaping Supply.
• Council amended a resolution regarding a joint county industrial park agreement between Dorchester and Orangeburg counties. The amendment will apply to a Dorchester County development.
• Council approved second reading of three ordinances dealing with zoning changes. The first ordinance will rezone Citadel Road Holding Company LLC’s land at 163 Citadel Road from forest agricultural to commercial general.
The second and third ordinances regard zoning changes for two churches: Mt. Beulah P.H. Church, located at 2610 Ninety Six Road, and Missionary Baptist Church, located at 11064 Old Number Six Hwy. Their zoning will change from forest agricultural to commercial general.
Both churches installed digital signage and had to request the zoning change in order to stay in compliance with the current zoning regulations. Young stated that the regulation may be changed.
• Council approved an ordinance authorizing the execution and delivery of a fee-in-lieu of taxes and special source revenue credit agreement between the county and Longleaf Packaging LLC. The company will be located at 621 Good Farm Road. The 18,700-square-foot facility will cost $5.7 million and create 28 jobs. Council also approved the awarding of a grant from the Rural Infrastructure Fund in the amount of $100,000.
• Deloris Frazier thanked council and Administrator Harold Young for their involvement in Youth Day at South Carolina State University.
“The students at Rivelon Elementary School and the community would like to thank you all very much for what you’ve done in the past and what you still do as far as making sure that the underprivileged kids off Edisto Drive attend youth day for South Carolina State University,” Frazier said.
• Council passed a resolution authorizing a revision of the Orangeburg County Employee Handbook Inclement Weather Policy. Young stated that the revisions will allow the county to save money, and also be in compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.
“Whenever we had a declared storm, we had been taking that as an admin leave day, which means that it’s basically like a holiday. And so, holiday pay kicks in, which means that if you do work during that disaster, we have a lot of people that still have to work,” Young said. “What this gives us the authorization to do now is determine whether or not we can treat it financially as a holiday because that’s a significant difference in the amount of payroll that it costs us by declaring a storm.
“The other aspect is there are certain times where because of the FOIA requirements you don’t want to break FOIA requirements by me trying to get council’s opinion on whether we should close or not. So what they did is gave the authority to me to be able to close,” he said.
Young said, “With us having so many storms now, the amount of days that it takes us to have to be down, we can’t necessarily afford to cover all the cost,” he said. “If you work part-time, and you don’t work, we don’t have to pay you. Without this revision, we were actually paying everyone whether they worked or not because we closed down.
“Now we have the option to pay them or not.”
• Council approved two sole-source bids for HVAC work at the new Orangeburg County Detention Center.
One portion of the work will cost $87,324 and will be done by PC Energy Solutions of Wando. Young stated that, “All of these units have to be commissioned and be made to talk to each other from the implantation of the computer systems and the HVAC systems.”
The installation of the HVAC system will cost $289,263 and be done by Control Management Inc. of Columbia.
• The Public Health and Safety Committee gave an update on what was discussed at its Oct. 15 meeting. The committee recommends an amendment to the Orangeburg County Code of Ordinances. Young stated the ordinance simply allows the county to update its code of ordinances.