Off-Grid Living in Sherman County, Kansas

I'll be upfront: Sherman County, Kansas (county seat Goodland) doesn't have much of its zoning, building, or dwelling-standards paperwork posted publicly, at least not that I could find. So a good chunk of this guide is "here's what I know, here's what I couldn't confirm, and here's who to call."

Zoning and land use. Kansas law (K.S.A. 12-741 et seq.) lets counties adopt zoning, but doesn't force them to. I could not find an official Sherman County zoning ordinance posted online, so whether unincorporated parts of the county have adopted zoning, and what that means for off-grid or unconventional builds, is not confirmed. The county's main site, shermancountyks.gov, is where I'd start if I were you, but I didn't find the actual regulations there.

Tiny homes, RVs, alternative dwellings. Same story: no county page spells out occupancy standards for RVs or tiny homes as permanent residences. Without a confirmed ordinance, I can't tell you whether living full-time in an RV or tiny home is fine, restricted, or banned in the unincorporated county. Call the county to ask directly.

Building permits. Kansas has no statewide mandatory building code outside state-owned property, so any permit requirement in Sherman County would have to come from the county itself. I didn't find a posted building-permit page or adopted code for the county, so this is unconfirmed too.

Septic and composting toilets. This one I can speak to with more confidence. Sherman County has an adopted Environmental/Sanitary Code (dated 1993, hosted by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment) that governs onsite wastewater. Kansas administrative regulations require wastewater to go to an approved system, whether that's a sewer connection, lagoon, septic system, or another approved alternative. Composting toilets show up as their own category in comparable Kansas county sanitary codes, but I couldn't confirm exactly how Sherman County's code treats them, so ask the county's environmental/sanitary code administrator before you install one.

Greywater. Not specifically addressed in anything I found for Sherman County. It's likely folded into the same sanitary code framework as septic, following KDHE standards, but there's no county-specific greywater rule I could confirm.

Rainwater harvesting. No county restriction turned up. Kansas's Water Appropriation Act exempts domestic-use collection statewide, and that baseline appears to apply here without local override.

Wells. Sherman County sits inside Northwest Kansas Groundwater Management District No. 4 (GMD4), which covers Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan and parts of several neighboring counties. Domestic wells are generally exempt from the state's appropriation permitting, the main requirement is using a licensed Kansas well driller and not wasting water. New non-domestic appropriations, though, run into real limits since the Ogallala Aquifer is closed to new appropriations in GMD4. Well construction itself still has to meet KDHE standards.

Utility disconnection. No ordinance requiring hookup to public utilities showed up in my research. That doesn't mean one doesn't exist, just that I couldn't confirm it either way.

Bottom line: for anything beyond septic and wells, Sherman County is a "call and ask" situation, not a "read the ordinance online" situation.