Home Remodeling Contractors in Eatonville, WA

Eatonville reviews its own permits through a combined Planning and Building Department, and every application arrives electronically as a PDF by email. The department's checklist for a house lists what a complete package holds: the signed application, a site plan, construction drawings, structural calculations, an energy code form, electrical load figures and a copy of the contractor's state license and Eatonville business license. Review deposits are due when the package goes in, and major remodels also go through the design standards review in Title 19 of the town code.

The site plan is drawn to scale with a north arrow, property corners, setback measurements, driveways, easements, stormwater connections and lot coverage, and it shows the tank, pump and primary and reserve drain fields where a septic system serves the house. An applicant may instead have the town's engineering staff draw the site plan for an hourly review fee.

A permit expires if work has not started within 180 days of issue, or if the job goes 180 days without an inspection once it is under way. The building official can extend that window once, by up to 180 days, on a written request. An application that has not become a permit within 180 days also expires. The town publishes no review times, so your calendar is set once the permit is issued.

Four streams bring state shoreline rules into Eatonville: the Mashel River and the Little Mashel River, Lynch Creek and Ohop Creek. The town's Shoreline Master Program, updated in March 2023, sorts their banks into Shoreline Residential, Urban Conservancy and Natural environments. Single family homes are a preferred shoreline use where zoning allows them, new homes are prohibited in the Natural environment, and the program asks that accessory structures such as ADUs keep hard surfaces to a minimum.

Buffers are measured from the ordinary high water mark, or from the top of the bank or the outer edge of the channel migration zone where those apply. Every residential project in shoreline jurisdiction has to show no net loss of ecological function, even when it needs no shoreline substantial development permit.

Flood rules sit in chapter 15.24 of the town code, which adopts the Flood Insurance Study for Pierce County and Incorporated Areas dated March 7, 2017, and the town planner administers them. In a mapped special flood hazard area a development permit comes first, and a new house, or an improvement costing half or more of a building's market value, needs its lowest floor at least one foot above the base flood elevation, recorded on an elevation certificate. The town's capital plan notes that the January 2022 flood damaged the rock armor along the Mashel River bank protecting the sewage treatment plant.

Chapter 15.16 of the town code covers wetlands, aquifer recharge areas, fish and wildlife habitat and geologically hazardous ground. The town publishes a critical areas map, and its comprehensive plan labels that map as reference only: the exact edge of a slope or wetland comes from a site analysis. Buildings keep 10 feet back from the edge of any critical area or its buffer.

Where a geologic hazard is involved, the report comes from an engineer or geologist and covers slope height and gradient, springs and seeps, soils and any past slides, then recommends buffers, foundation and retaining wall design, drainage and erosion control.

The code also names two aquifer recharge areas: a Class 2 aquifer to the northwest and a Class 1 aquifer to the southeast that supplies the town's drinking water. Additions and other improvements under 2,500 square feet of total impervious surface that add no risk from hazardous substances are exempt from the aquifer rules.

Section 18.08.045 of the town code, last amended in 2022, allows one accessory dwelling unit on a lot with a single family house, attached or detached. The unit needs at least 300 square feet of floor area, may have no more than two bedrooms and may not exceed 40 percent of the main house or 1,000 square feet, whichever is less, although a unit of up to 500 square feet is allowed beside even a small house. A detached unit stands at least 15 feet from the house unless it is built on or beside the garage, and it can be no wider than 75 percent of the lot.

RCW 36.70A.681 bars owner occupancy rules, requires cities and towns to allow two accessory units per lot and forbids size caps below 1,000 square feet, and where local code conflicts, the state requirements override it. We confirm how the town applies that ADU law before design.

The Census Bureau's 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey puts the median Eatonville home at 1994. About half of the town's homes went up between 1990 and 2009, roughly one in ten dates from 1939 or earlier, and close to four in five are detached houses, most of them lived in by their owners. A 1990s or 2000s house tends to need new finishes, fixtures and layouts; a prewar house can reveal original framing and wiring once a wall is opened, and the itemized price names what is likely to turn up.

Most houses sit in one of three single family zones, with minimum lots of 9,600, 8,400 or 6,000 square feet. All three keep a 25 foot front yard, 8 foot side and rear yards and a 28 foot height limit, and the low density zone caps buildings at 30 percent of the lot where the other two allow 40. A shed or shop over 120 square feet in the rear half of the lot can come within 8 feet of the side and rear lines, a smaller one within 3 feet, and the town's design table places Eatonville in seismic design category D1.