City goes after scofflaw builder

Kirk McCall ordered to file for retroactive permits or face fines

By Jacob Quinn Sanders

The Portland Tribune, Aug 23, 2005, Updated Oct 30, 2009

The city Bureau of Development Services has threatened Southeast Portland house-builder Kirk McCall with huge fines if he does not obtain permits and inspections within 30 days for renovations he performed on three properties.

McCall, 52, told the Portland Tribune that obtaining permits and inspections cut against his personal philosophy of providing low-cost housing and operating outside city bureaucracy. The June 26 story sparked a city investigation into nine properties he owns or has owned, going back 21 years.

The bureau’s investigator working the case, Dick Anderson, sent three letters to McCall and his wife, Joanne Buck, last week detailing violations at 2806 S.E. 43rd Ave., 4025 S.E. Kelly St. and the couple’s own home at 4045 S.E. Kelly St.

Violations include the conversion of a house into a triplex with an unpermitted kitchen and bedrooms, the unpermitted installation of a hot tub in another house, and no permits or inspections for new wiring and plumbing in a third house.

“He has been very cooperative,” bureau Director Paul Scarlett said of McCall. “But when he told your paper everything he told you, he essentially filed a complaint on himself.”

McCall did not return a phone call or an e-mail seeking comment.

The letters Ñ two dated Aug. 16, the other dated Aug. 18 Ñ list a total of 19 violations on the three properties and advise McCall and Buck to obtain permits and inspections within 30 days. After that, they could face fines of $1,000 a day plus additional fines and fees for enforcement of further penalties.

Six other properties, previously owned by McCall and since sold to other people, still could be found in violation Ñ which would mean no further trouble for McCall but plenty for the new owners.

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