Off-Grid Living in Clinton, Connecticut

I'll say this upfront: Clinton, Connecticut is not the place for a quiet, unpermitted off-grid homestead. It's a fully zoned town, and its Planning & Zoning Commission actively administers both Zoning Regulations and Subdivision Regulations, codified through eCode360. Nothing here is "unzoned" or informal, so anyone eyeing land in Clinton needs to think district-by-district, not just town-wide.

Zoning and land use fall under the Planning & Zoning Commission. Raw land use is controlled by whatever district a given parcel sits in, and the town is explicit that its regulations exist to balance individual property rights against the town's broader plan. That means what you can do with a piece of land in one part of Clinton may not fly a mile away.

Dwellings, tiny homes, and RVs run into real friction. Clinton's own accessory-apartment rules set minimum floor areas (one thousand square feet for a principal structure, seven hundred fifty for an accessory structure housing an apartment), and at least one district bars "transient lodging" with a mandated minimum stay of 180 days. That combination makes a small full-time dwelling or RV-as-residence a hard sell in at least some zones. I couldn't confirm specific town language addressing tiny homes on wheels directly, so treat that as an open question for zoning enforcement.

Building permits go through Clinton's Building Department, which issues permits and inspects everything from framing to gas and oil tank work, operating under state statutes and coordinating with the Fire Marshal.

Septic is a shared jurisdiction: Clinton's Director of Health (or an authorized agent) and the Connecticut Department of Public Health both have a hand in it, under the state's Public Health Code technical standards for subsurface sewage systems. Composting toilets aren't addressed in anything Clinton-specific I found, so that's a "call and ask" situation.

Greywater has no Clinton-specific rule I could locate, so it sits in the same unclear space Connecticut's state code leaves it in.

Rainwater harvesting looks fine, governed only by the general state building code provision, with no added Clinton restriction found.

Wells get complicated because some Clinton zoning provisions require certain dwellings, like two-family homes, to be served by public water rather than a private well. That's a zoning-level constraint layered on top of the state's well-permitting process.

Put it together and full utility disconnection is genuinely uncertain town-wide. Some districts seem to mandate public water for specific dwelling types, and building/health permitting is unavoidable. A district-by-district read of the zoning map is really the only way to know for sure, so I'd treat this as a "confirm before you buy" situation rather than a green light.