Home Remodeling Contractors in Steilacoom, WA

The Town's Community Development Department handles building permits, historic preservation, land use permits and long range planning. Applications for a house, or for any project with a set of plans, are delivered to the Town office in the morning hours; smaller standard permits can be sent by email. Staff review the application, quote the permit fee, and email the approved permit or a list of corrections. Permits that come with plans are collected in person, and inspections are carried out at the building inspector's discretion.

Before a permit is issued, the Town asks for a Washington contractor registration, a Town of Steilacoom business license, a signed erosion and sediment control plan and two copies of a plot plan showing setbacks, easements and every hard surface. The regional developer portal the Town links to lists about 30 days as a typical building permit timeline and about 120 days for land use approvals, and notes that critical areas, Historic District status and nearness to the shoreline can extend both.

Steilacoom became the first incorporated municipality in Washington Territory in 1854, and the Town adopted its own preservation program in 1975. Many of its homes are on the National Register of Historic Places, and the Historic District Design Standards guide every exterior change within the district.

Those standards ask that an addition sit toward the back of the house and read as secondary to it, that original window and door openings keep their size and shape, and that historic siding not be covered with vinyl, aluminum, stucco or fiber cement. Work that stays entirely inside a house does not go before the Board, although the preservation officer can send it there if it touches interior features listed as contributing to a registered property.

A Certificate of Appropriateness expires if the project has not moved forward within two years, and the owner may ask in writing for one extension of a year. On an older house we plan the exterior design around the standards first, then fit the kitchen, baths and systems inside it.

The current Shoreline Master Program took effect on 3 May 2019 with the Department of Ecology's approval. It sorts the shore into environments: developed residential frontage is Shoreline Residential, while the areas around the Cliff Avenue and Fifth Street waterways, Sunnyside Beach and Saltar's Point Beach are Urban Conservancy. Inside shoreline jurisdiction no structure may rise more than 35 feet above average grade without a shoreline variance.

Beyond the shore, the Town regulates wetlands, aquifer recharge areas, fish and wildlife habitat, frequently flooded areas and geologic hazards under SMC 16.16, which the Town Council updated with Ordinance 1740 on 17 March 2026. The Town says its critical areas map is a reference only, and the exact edge of a critical area is set by a qualified professional in the field. In erosion and landslide hazard areas, clearing is allowed only from 1 May to 1 October unless the Town adjusts the season for the weather.

The comprehensive plan counts 11 drainage basins in town, draining toward Puget Sound, often through small streams, and describes Farrell's Marsh, a 64 acre wetland and upland natural area in the Cherrydale neighborhood that the Town has owned since 1976.

Steilacoom lies inside the Tacoma smelter plume, an area where the Asarco copper smelter in Ruston may have left lead and arsenic in the soil, and the Town's builder's packet passes on the Department of Ecology's advice to test soil anywhere in town before grading. Moving more than 50 cubic yards of material takes a separate site development permit.

During construction, bare soil may sit unworked for no more than two days between 1 October and 30 April, and no more than seven days in the drier months. The Town runs its own sewer and electric utilities, and water comes from either the Town or the Lakewood Water District depending on the address, so a new electric meter base or service change is arranged with Town staff before it is installed.

Steilacoom has allowed accessory dwelling units since 1995. Under SMC 18.16.020 a lot in any zone that allows single-family homes may have two, in any mix of attached and detached, if the lot meets its zone's minimum size. Each unit must be between 320 and 1,000 square feet, must stay within the lot coverage and setback limits, and adds one off-street parking space to the two the house already needs. The owner does not have to live in either the house or the ADU.

A detached unit may sit right at a lot line that backs onto a public alley, and a garage or other structure that existed on or before 5 December 2023 may be converted even where it breaks today's setbacks. A new detached unit needs its own water, sewer and electric connections. The Town gives or refuses preliminary approval within 30 days, notifies the neighbors, and issues the building permit if no appeal is filed. In the Historic District, exterior changes for an ADU go to the Board first.

The Census Bureau's 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey puts the median Steilacoom home at 1978. The 1970s alone account for about three in ten homes, a little more than half were built before 1980, and roughly one in seventeen dates from 1939 or earlier. About six in ten homes are detached houses, and about six in ten occupied homes are lived in by their owners.

Houses from the 1960s and 1970s often reach their first full remodel with original wiring, single pane windows and thin insulation behind the walls. We list that work line by line in the written price, so it is decided before demolition rather than found halfway through.