Home Remodeling in
Gig Harbor, WA

The City of Gig Harbor covers about 3,924 acres, roughly six square miles, after recent annexations. Plenty of homes outside that boundary still carry a Gig Harbor mailing address, which the city itself acknowledges makes things confusing.

Inside city limits, the City of Gig Harbor handles your permits under its own municipal code. Outside them, you are in unincorporated Pierce County, permits go through the county, and the county has its own set of rules for the Gig Harbor Peninsula.

The city publishes an interactive boundary map that settles the question in a minute. Do that before anything is designed, because the wrong assumption means drawings prepared for the wrong code.

Within the City of Gig Harbor, accessory dwelling units are permitted outright in every residential zone that allows single-family homes, and they can be built alongside a new house or an existing one.

An ADU can sit within the main house, be attached to it, or stand as a separate building. The city defines it as a subordinate unit on the same lot as a single-family home, duplex, triplex, townhome or other housing unit. The development standards of the underlying zone still apply, so setbacks, height and lot coverage are where the real design limits come from.

Outside city limits, Pierce County's own accessory dwelling code applies instead. Inside the county's urban growth area it allows two ADUs per lot at up to 1,000 square feet each. Outside the urban growth area it allows one, and the size limit rises to 1,250 square feet.

That difference matters on the peninsula, where a lot of properties sit on larger rural parcels. A rural lot can take one bigger unit, while a lot inside the growth area can take two smaller ones. Which you have depends on where the line falls, so confirm it for your address before choosing a design.