§ 156.720  ENFORCEMENT.
   (A)   Enforcement of provisions. The Planning Director and Code Enforcement Officer shall be charged with the enforcement of the provisions of this chapter. If the Planning Director or Code Enforcement Officer find that any of the provisions of this chapter are being violated, he or she shall notify in writing the persons responsible for such violations, indicating the nature of violation and ordering the actions necessary to correct it. They shall also take any other action authorized by this chapter to ensure compliance with or to prevent violation of its provisions.
   (B)   Penalty.
      (1)   In accordance with G.S. § 160A-175, any person violating any provisions of this chapter shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be punished for each offense by a fine or by imprisonment. Each day a violation continues shall be deemed a separate offense.
      (2)   In case any building or structure is erected, constructed, reconstructed, repaired, converted, or maintained, or any building, structure, or land is used in violation of this chapter, the Planning Director, Code Enforcement Officer, or any other appropriate town authority, in addition to other remedies, may institute injunction, mandamus, or other appropriate action in proceeding  to prevent the violation.
      (3)   The following penalties as set forth in the General Statutes shall also prevail: G.S. §160A-375, "Penalties for Transferring Lots in Unapproved Subdivisions; ....any person who, being the owner or agent of the owner of any land located within the jurisdiction of that city, thereafter subdivides his land in violation of the ordinance or transfers or sells land by reference to, exhibition of, or any other use of a plat showing a subdivision of the land before the plat has been properly approved under such ordinance and recorded in the office of the appropriate register of deeds, shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. The description by metes  and bounds in the instrument of transfer or other document used in the process of selling or transferring land shall not exempt the transaction from this penalty. The city may bring an  action for injunction of any illegal subdivision, transfer, conveyance, or sale of land, and the court shall, upon appropriate findings, issue an injunction and order requiring the offending party to comply with the subdivision ordinance."
(Ord. passed 6- -2019)