The sun broke out for a few seconds this afternoon as members of Right 2 Dream Too, organizers of a homeless community on a vacant lot at NW Fourth and Burnside, formally took possession of their lease from Michael Wright, one of the owners of the lot.

It was the festive high point of an open house that was meant to show off the start of what's envisioned as a second Dignity Village but in one of the most visible locations downtown. But then the clouds showed up again. And so did city inspectors who had read the Tribune's weekend account of the lot's transformation and were clearly troubled.

Their lightning-quick appearance shows that not all occupations in Portland—if you can call this one an occupation, given that there's a lease—will be treated equally. The swift action also seems to have reignited a longstanding feud between property owners and the city.

"We received complaints this morning," Mike Liefeld, the city's code enforcement director, told the group and several reporters still on hand. "We're here to talk about which codes might apply.... It potentially looks problematic."

Liefeld, accompanied by the Bureau of Development Services' spokesman, Ross Caron, was referring to the handful of tents on the property, as well as the door-constructed fence. tried to assure the group that they city only wanted some information—to start "a conversation" about how to set up the camp legally, or not all.

But when Ibrahim Mubarak, Right 2 Dream Too's spokesman, vainly tried to protest that the area isn't technically a camp—"It's a resting area," he says—that did little to placate the city inspectors, who quickly retreated into the minutia of city code concerning tents. He stayed away from similarly arcane details on zoning codes. (Although the group did, in fact, call it a camp in a statement published by Street Roots.)

Liefeld later chided one of the property owners still on hand, Dan Cossette, for not bothering to tell the city's permitting officials of what was planned. He used a word—"illegal"—that he shied away from when addressing the homeless community.

"I wish you would have done that," he told Cossette about the camp, "because I think that's illegal to do."

Neither Caron nor Liefeld said the city was ready to start issuing citations. But the threat of action against the property owners loomed heavily.

Right 2 Dream Too members were keenly aware they probably wouldn't get the same passes—waived rules about camping, tents, and curfews—that the Occupy Portland campers received.

"It's a little different," one member said before the inspectors arrived, declining to give a name because only Mubarak is technically allowed to speak for the group. "It's going to be a huge double-standard if they crush this."

After the confrontation, I asked Caron what he might say to those who noted the disparity. He knew it was coming and said it came down to the different codes governing private property and public property. Technically, people aren't allowed to set up tents and sleep in them.

"We want to be proactive," he said. Occupy Portland is "largely a demonstration on public property. But if they stated that their camp was going to be permanent, then we'd be dealing with it in the same manner."

I asked Cossette why he didn't think the owners should tell the city ahead of time. "I don't know why we had to," he said.

He mentioned all the bad blood over the adult bookstore that used to be on the lot, and then the food carts that also were driven off. He said until he and his partners could get their asking price—$3 million—they figured they would open it up to people who needed a place to sleep and feel safe. Wright earlier confirmed the group and the owners had been in talks for months before the open house. Wright said Portlanders should make sure to credit Randy Leonard, formerly in charge of the Bureau of Development Services, for the camp. But neither he nor Cossette would come out and say they were directly trying to poke city officials in the eye by not telling the city ahead of time. In fact, Cossette's family seemed upset the city was trying to shut things down.

"They'll probably fine me one more time," Cossette said. "If they don't like that, I'll go to the bank, borrow $250,000 and give them another adult book store. If that's the way they want to play it, that's they way we'll play it."