When the board updated the town's fee schedule as part of the 2011-12 budget, it changed the penalty for zoning violations from $100 per violation to $25 for a first violation, then $100 if violations continue.

The town's planning staff told the board the new fee schedule contradicts the Unified Development Ordinance, which requires a citation for a first zoning violation, then $100 for continuing violations.

The staff proposed a change to the UDO to include the citation, then a $25 penalty for the first day of the violation and a $100 penalty each day until the violation is corrected.

"We did the (fee schedule change) as an afterthought. I'm not sure we did the right thing," Commissioner Carol Hinnant said. "The $25 penalty does not cover our mailing costs. We are not trying to make money, but we do not need to lose money in the process. We might be changing the wrong thing here."

Commissioner Ira Fuller put the brakes on continuing any discussion of changing the UDO and asked the staff to review the entire fee schedule approved in the 2011-12 budget to make sure no other contradictions existed.

"We do not need to make something simple into something complicated," Fuller said.

Commissioners voted unanimously for Fuller's motion to look for discrepancies.

Commissioners also found a discrepancy in a planning staff request to rezone apartment complexes at Marshburn Road and Hanor Lane.

The developers of Maple Court Apartments want to add a 2,000-square-foot office and renovate current office space into apartments in the existing building.

The staff found that when the UDO was approved in 2010, the apartments were rezoned. But town staff learned while reviewing the Maple Court plan, they rezoned the property not to allow multifamily uses like apartments.

The staff recommended rezoning Maple Court and two other apartment complexes, Robinwood and Crestfield, as Neighborhood Commercial districts instead of residential.

Fuller asked staff to look at all the zoning changes in the UDO that effect multifamily use.