Off-Grid Living in Southbury, Connecticut

I'll be upfront: Southbury, Connecticut is a fully zoned town, and that shapes almost everything about off-grid living here. Whatever you've read about "unzoned Connecticut land" doesn't apply to this town.

Zoning. The Southbury Zoning Commission administers residential districts like R-30A, R-40, R-60, and R-80, each with its own minimum lot size. You can't just buy raw land and park a shelter on it, any structure or use has to fit the Zoning Regulations (Part V of the town's Code of Ordinances). Worth noting: these regulations date to 1966 with amendments only through 1973 in places, and the town is currently rewriting them, so it's smart to check with the Zoning Department for the current version rather than relying on an old PDF.

Dwellings, tiny homes, RVs. I could not find a Southbury provision that specifically addresses tiny homes or living in an RV full-time. That doesn't mean it's allowed, it likely falls under general dwelling and structure standards in the zoning code, and I'd treat it as restricted until the Zoning Department confirms otherwise.

Building permits. The Southbury Building Department reviews plans against the State of Connecticut Building Code plus local ordinances and issues permits and certificates of occupancy. This is a state-code baseline that every town in Connecticut enforces locally.

Septic and wells. Southbury doesn't run its own health department, it's covered by the Housatonic Valley Health District (HVHD), a regional authority also serving New Milford, Oxford, Washington, and Woodbury. HVHD handles septic design review, as-built approvals, and well/water-quality sign-off. Composting toilets aren't addressed anywhere I found, so that's an open question for HVHD directly.

Greywater. No Southbury or HVHD policy on household greywater reuse turned up in my research. That's a genuine unclear, not a "yes" or "no."

Rainwater harvesting. Nothing in Southbury's code adds restrictions beyond whatever the State Building Code allows generally, so this looks permitted at the baseline level.

Utilities/off-grid living. There's no ordinance I found that bans disconnecting from the grid outright, but your certificate of occupancy still depends on the Building Department confirming code-compliant water and wastewater systems (which loops back to HVHD approval). So "off-grid" here means self-sufficient systems that still pass inspection, not going around the permitting process.

Bottom line: this is a town where you'll need to work with local and regional offices step by step, not a place to quietly disappear onto land unpermitted.