About two dozen workers at M&S Auto Parts, a salvage yard on Roberts Road just north of Fayetteville, will keep their jobs while county officials and company owners work to unravel a red tape dilemma.

With uniformed workers looking on, county commissioners last week voted unanimously to extend a temporary certificate of occupancy for the company's new office building for four months.

Meanwhile, county officials will have to decide whether to change an ordinance requiring the company to pave its parking lot, even though Roberts Road is not paved. "Putting a paved parking area next to an unpaved road is kind of a useless act," said Robert Kaufman, attorney for M&S.

Paving the parking lot would cost $30,000 to $40,000, said Kaufman, but paving contractors refuse to warrant the work because the lot would be on a dirt road. Kaufman said the county should either pave Roberts Road or exempt the company from the requirement.

A paved parking lot in an auto salvage operation isn't such a good idea anyway, said Kaufman, and he received an "amen" on that point from Commissioner Glen Gosa. "I don't like impervious surfaces in this particular type of business," said Gosa.

Commissioners directed the county Planning Commission to consider changes in the ordinance.

Meanwhile, M&S faces problems with its landscaping plan because of the dirt road, said Kaufman. Ordinances require landscape plantings that are not compatible with the dust, he said. That issue can be dealt with through variances, officials told him. The company will take its landscape problems and issues concerning signage to the county Zoning Board of Appeals.

In other business, the County Commission:

Unanimously agreed to send a Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan to the Atlanta Regional Commission and Georgia Department of Community Affairs for review. Commissioner Linda Wells said she was concerned that Fayette Clean and Beautiful, a volunteer organization, is held responsible for coordinating recycling and other programs, but commissioners decided to approve the plan and deal with that question later. "The state is very long on planning but kind of short on implementation," said Pete Frisina, county planner.

Denied a rezoning request for an office complex on 3.3 acres on Sumner Road. Offices would be "ideal for the location," said Thomas Sellmer, agent for the owners. "I don't think anyone would want to live on that piece of property."

But Don Hankinson of nearby Sedgwick subdivision said the surrounding area is residential, and the land in question should be residential as well. Commissioners voted 4-0 to deny the request, with Commissioner Herb Frady abstaining. Frady said one of the owners is his pastor.

Commissioners earlier turned down a request for a communications tower on the same parcel.

Approved minor plat changes in two subdivisions, allowing a land swap in one so that a swimming pool could be installed, and allowing a land swap in the other to replace land lost in an easement.

Denied Richard Junkins' rezoning request and revised final plat in Gantt Acres, phase one, that would have divided one five-acre lot into two. The subdivision is zoned A-R (agricultural-residential), a category that requires minimum five-acre lots.