Mailbox laws should be enforced and they should apply equally to everyone in the county, say Fayette Planning Commission members.

They will continue to work on wording of the county's ordinance prohibiting unyielding brick, pipe, concrete and stucco mailboxes, but the group is opposed to exempting subdivision streets from the ordinance, members said during a workshop meeting last week.

Swamped with new standards for communications towers and special construction rules for Ga. Highway 85 north, they put the matter off until their next workshop, Nov. 19, but not before making their feelings known.

"There is almost no need to argue about this," said Planning Commission member Fred Bowen after county commissioners sent the Planning Commission's proposed changes back for more review. "[Monument-style mailboxes are] a danger, and it ought to be a simple issue: They don't exist. I don't see how you can discriminate between these residents."

Planning commissioners had proposed new language in the five-year-old ordinance that would require that a home's mailbox be included in the final inspection conducted by county inspectors, to help zoning department staff enforce the law. If the mailbox is erected after the final inspection, there is no way to ensure that it meets county standards, commissioners said.

The original impetus came from the Board of Commissioners, who asked the Planning Commission to look over the ordinance, saying too many mailboxes that violate the law are being erected.

Commissioners passed the law in 1993 after the state Department of Transportation widened Gingercake Road and demanded that all the monument-style mailboxes on the road be demolished, causing a public relations nightmare for the county.

DOT will not provide funds to improve or maintain any road where they exist, because officials of the department consider them a safety hazard.

When the Planning Commission presented its revised wording recently, though, county commissioners said the mailbox structures should be allowed in subdivisions or on roads where the speed limit is below 35 miles per hour.

Planning Commission member Jim Graw said that approach doesn't solve the problem. "We're still leaving ourselves open to liability and still leaving ourselves vulnerable to not getting any state funds for paving," said Graw.