PORTLAND, Ore. – Should you have the right to do repairs in your own home without permits?

That's the debate surrounding an issue on November's ballot.

Under Measure 63, you could do $35,000 worth of repairs without permits or inspections.

"In American, a free country, why should you be afraid to improve your own property?" asked Bill Sizemore of Oregon Taxpayers United, which is responsible for Measure 63.

He said he got the idea for the measure from watching do-it-yourselfers in a home improvement store. The measure is aimed at people wanting to make minor repairs. Sizemore added that $35,000 isn't really a lot of money these days when it can take $60,000 or $80,000 to remodel a kitchen.

Retired firefighter Tim Birr said any work not inspected is just an opening for disaster.

"Some people are capable of doing that work safely and there's other people that frankly aren't," he said.

Birr pointed to the Coos Bay Farwest Auto and Truck fire of 2002 that killed three firefighters as an example of what could go wrong. Investigators blame the blaze on a self-installed grease incinerator.

Sizemore said safety will be the biggest concern opponents bring up to hide the fact that they will be out customers if it passes.

"If people were free to remodel without a building permit, more people would do it and wouldn't hire them," he said.

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