Home Remodeling Contractors in Lakewood, WA

Every Lakewood permit is filed online. The Planning and Public Works Department takes applications only through its Online Permit Center, which also handles fees, status checks and inspection requests, and only a complete application with fees paid goes into review.

Order matters here. The city asks that wetlands, streams, geologic hazards and their buffers on a lot be reviewed or delineated before a single-family building permit is submitted, and it will not issue a residential building permit until any required land use approval, such as a tree removal permit, is in place. For lots with environmental constraints, a new dock or a bulkhead, the city strongly recommends a pre-application meeting.

Plans for a minor remodel can go in on letter-size sheets; larger work needs a full, scaled set. Inspections are booked in the same portal and are scheduled in the order requests arrive. The city does not list plan review times on these pages, so we date your start once its first response is in.

Lakewood's critical areas code, LMC Title 14, covers wetlands, critical aquifer recharge areas, fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas, geologic hazard areas and frequently flooded areas. Stream buffers run from 35 to 150 feet and wetland buffers from 40 to 225 feet, depending on the water's type and rating.

American Lake, at about 1,125 acres, is a shoreline of statewide significance, and most lots on it and on Lake Steilacoom, Gravelly Lake and Lake Louise are single-family homes. The 2024 code update kept remodeling buffers the same on those lakes but widened them around Boyles Lake, Lost Lake, Carp Lake, Emerson Lake, Flett Creek and Ponce de Leon Creek, so an older survey may no longer match the rules.

Lakewood rewrote its ADU standards for the state law, HB 1337, and the new rules took effect on 1 January 2025. LMC 18A.40.110 allows up to two ADUs with a detached house, duplex, triplex or townhome, but only one on a lot with a critical area or buffer.

A detached ADU can be up to 1,200 square feet, not counting a garage, while one built inside the existing house is limited by that house's zoning envelope. Each ADU must meet the same setbacks, lot coverage and height limits as the main house and needs one off-street parking space, unless the lot is within a quarter mile of a Pierce Transit bus route or half a mile of Sound Transit's Lakewood Station and the city finds street parking adequate. A legally built accessory building can be converted.

Lakewood is an older city by housing age. The Census Bureau's 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey puts the median year built at 1975, with close to six in ten homes built before 1980 and the 1960s the busiest single decade. About 44 percent of homes are detached single-family houses.

A house from the 1950s, 60s or 70s can hide aluminum or undersized wiring, galvanized supply lines and thin insulation until the walls come open. We price that possibility into the written estimate rather than finding it halfway through.