You get a town from the server at the same time you get mayor. When you apply for mayor most the app is dedicated to setting up your town. What you can also do is buy a town from another user. This makes you the unofficial owner of that town. What that means is that you can add and remove members, file grief reports and lcws. But you can not make forum application for it on the forums. So you could not add a portal to a town you buy form a user.