Home Remodeling Contractors in Bellevue, WA

Bellevue building permits come from the city's Development Services Department, and the process is fully paperless: applications, plans, fees and inspection requests all go through MyBuildingPermit.com, a regional online permit portal.

Nonstructural work that adds no area or height, such as remodeling a kitchen or bathroom, turning a finished basement into living or sleeping space or moving walls that carry no load, can take a no plan review permit that the city says can be issued the same day. It still needs inspections, starting with a pre-construction meeting on site, and if the inspector finds the job is bigger than that permit allows, plans go in for a review the city says may take three weeks.

Anything structural moves to the single family remodel permit with plan review: taking out or replacing a bearing wall, enlarging a window, converting a garage or unfinished basement, or creating an ADU inside the house. Additions under 3,000 square feet, decks more than 30 inches off the ground and docks use the single family addition permit instead.

Development Services posts a report of processing days by permit type, with a median and an average for each. Over the counter permits are left out of the figures, so same day approvals are not counted in them. We use the report's medians, not the fastest cases, when we set a start date.

Bellevue rewrote its critical areas code, Land Use Code Part 20.25H, through Ordinance 6894, adopted in December 2025 and codified in April 2026. It designates streams, wetlands, geologic hazard areas, fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas, frequently flooded areas and critical aquifer recharge areas.

Two geologic hazards matter most to hillside homes. A landslide hazard is a slope of 15 percent or more with over 10 feet of rise that also shows signs such as past slides, seeps or old landslide deposits. A steep slope is 40 percent or more with at least 10 feet of rise and more than 1,000 square feet in area. Each gets a 50 foot buffer, which a geotechnical engineer or geologist can support reducing to 15 feet when the risk to the structure and neighbors is shown to be minimal.

The city calls its Steep Slopes and liquefaction maps guides only; a critical areas report and the city's review of it decide what is really on a lot. Other critical areas carry a 15 foot structure setback beyond their buffer.

Bellevue's Shoreline Master Program, Land Use Code Part 20.25E, reaches 200 feet landward of the ordinary high water mark of Lake Washington (including Mercer Slough up to Interstate 405), Lake Sammamish and Phantom Lake, and 200 feet either side of Lower Kelsey Creek. The two big lakes are shorelines of statewide significance. Phantom Lake and Lower Kelsey Creek are regulated through the critical areas rules of Part 20.25H.

On residential shoreline the house keeps a 50 foot structure setback from the high water line. The code lets it shrink to 25 feet if lost shoreline vegetation is replaced, and allows a house that already sits within 25 feet one lateral expansion of up to 200 square feet, once in its life. No shoreline permit can be issued for a new or expanded building more than 35 feet above average finished grade, and the city warns that dock repairs and new docks can take several months and may need approval from outside agencies.

Council adopted Bellevue's middle housing code on June 24, 2025, to meet the state's HB 1110 and HB 1337. Any lot that allows a single family house can have up to two accessory dwelling units, and an amendment in force since August 4, 2026, extends that to lots zoned for middle housing. The owner no longer has to live on site, a rule Bellevue dropped in its 2023 ADU reform.

Each ADU can have up to 1,200 square feet of floor area, not counting up to 300 square feet of parking or unheated storage. A detached unit is capped at 24 feet in height, or 28 feet when it is built over an existing accessory structure. No parking space is required for a unit under 1,000 square feet or within half a mile of a major transit stop; otherwise it needs one. An existing garage can be converted even if it does not meet today's setbacks.

A detached ADU is permitted like a house, on the one and two family residence permit.

The median Bellevue housing unit was built in 1982, according to the Census Bureau's 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey, but 45 percent of the city's 66,021 units date from 1950 to 1979, with the 1960s and 1970s each accounting for about 17 percent. Fewer than 2 percent are older than 1950.

Just under half of those units, 46 percent, are detached single family houses, while 21 percent sit in buildings of 50 or more units. In houses of that age we expect wiring, plumbing and insulation below today's code once walls are open, so we price that allowance into the itemized quote rather than leaving it to a change order.