photo/Kiki J. Garfield
Funny thing about the bureaucrats at Portland City Hall… They’re all gung-ho to make you jump through hoops for permits when you build or buy a place, then hound you with health and safety inspections, backed by the threat of fines or worse, the entire time you’re there. But if you decide one day to just up and leave the property to the vagaries of vagrants, vermin and le vent du nord, city staff will contentedly ignore the mess you’ve made (as long as you keep paying the tax bill). Years can pass. Decades of abject neglect. Complaints from neighbors. Obvious risks of death and fire.
Portland City Hall is unconcerned. Enjoy your retirement in Aruba.
Take 180 Washington Ave., for example. A tiny single-family baby-blue house scrunched between Charles Loring American Veterans Post #25 and a weed shop, it looks like it’ll topple like a drunkenly constructed Jenga tower in the next strong wind. A couple sections of chain-link fence are bravely standing in front, but frankly, they’re doing a piss-poor job guarding against entry. One can just step around them and crawl right inside this architectural nightmare. And plenty of desperate people do: to shoot up, sleep, smoke, light a candle, maybe a little blaze to keep warm…
“I’m just fed up with it. The club is fed up with it,” Jim Connolly said between drags outside the Amvets. “Gotta get the goddamn thing torn town.” A board member of the Post, Connolly said the neighboring eyesore, which the Amvets owned until about 10 years ago, has been vacant for many years, and he and his fellow soldiers fear it could catch fire and take their bar down with it. “We want the city to do something about it,” he said.
But like I said, they will not.
They did get someone to scrub graffiti off the house soon after Andy Pettingill, who runs Evergreen Cannabis Co. next door with his wife, Kristin, reported the vandalism via the city’s 311 complaint system. “It’s a shame it sits vacant and looks like it does,” said Andy, who added that a small group of homeless people camped amid the trees on the steep bank out back left without incident.
City records indicate that David Harmon, an architect with a residence in Saco, bought the property in 2015. He did not respond to The Bollard’s request for comment.
In the summer of 2016, neighborhood watchdog Carol McCracken posted on her website, Munjoy Hill News, that Harmon had filed an application to build five condos there with parking for four cars at ground level. A more recent site plan, submitted to the city in March of 2022, envisioned four units in a nearly 4,300 square-foot structure with parking … somewhere (it’s not clear from available records).
Public filings suggest that project was proposed and withdrawn or abandoned at least a couple times, which comports with neighbors’ take on Harmon — he shows up now and again and pokes around, maybe mentions doing something there someday, then leaves and more months pass. The dirty needles pile up. It gets colder again outside…
But wait! City records also indicate an official “Complaint” was received about the property on June 3, and its status is “In Progress”! Furthermore, two days later, the property was found to be “In Violation” following an inspection, and a “Building/Land Use Re-inspection” is scheduled for Aug. 1. More Progress!
Architect or not, seems it’d be a bitch to build enough lucrative units on this cliff-side, postage-stamp parcel to cover the costs. Then again, Redfern Properties announced plans last month to build over 300 units across the street from this dump, some as small as 300 square feet. The loss of its parking across the street may doom Post #25 before accidental arson does, so if Harmon doesn’t build a penitentiary-chic condo tower, maybe he can buy the Post and think about developing both properties for another decade or so.
