Off-Grid Living in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana

If you're weighing a move off-grid in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, here's what I've found digging through the parish and state sources. West Feliciana is a bit different from many rural Louisiana parishes: it actually has parish-wide zoning, administered by the West Feliciana Parish Planning and Zoning Department, working from a Comprehensive Land Use Plan and subdivision regulations. That means "just buy land and do what you want" isn't quite the game plan here the way it might be in an unzoned parish. The parish has also been actively updating its zoning, "green law," and subdivision ordinances in recent years, along with a new Rural Development Plan, so I'd treat any older summaries of the code with caution and always check current text on Municode.

On dwellings, tiny homes, and RVs, I have to be honest: I could not confirm parish-specific rules on minimum size, tiny-home siting, or how RVs/THOWs get classified. The state's IRC/IBC/Appendix Q framework is the backdrop, but the parish zoning chapter likely has more detail I just didn't find. Confirm directly with Planning and Zoning before you commit.

Building permits follow Louisiana's uniform state construction code, administered locally through the parish's Building Permit Office (Police Jury). Note that the Town of St. Francisville, the parish seat, runs its own separate approval process, so if you're inside town limits, different rules apply.

Septic is a state program (Louisiana Department of Health, Onsite Wastewater Program) carried out locally by the West Feliciana Parish Health Unit's sanitarians. There is a real but narrow self-install exception: a property owner can install a non-mechanical septic system for personal use themselves, but hiring an unlicensed installer for any part of the job voids approval. Composting toilets aren't separately addressed in anything I found, parish or state.

Greywater reuse falls under the state Plumbing Code's nonpotable water reuse rules, with no parish-specific ordinance found, administered by the same health unit. Rainwater harvesting looks genuinely unrestricted, I found no parish rule limiting it, and it appears to sit outside the state's greywater definition entirely.

Wells and water: most of the parish is covered by Consolidated Waterworks District No. 13, a public water district the parish itself manages under a Police Jury-created district (state-authorized under Louisiana law). Only St. Francisville and Angola prison are outside it. If you're outside the district's service area, you'd fall back on state well permitting rules.

Finally, on living fully off-grid utilities, I found nothing at the parish level either restricting or protecting that choice; it comes down to the state baseline, which preempts parishes from blocking utility connection rights but doesn't require you to hook up. Whether zoning or building permits here quietly require a water hookup for occupancy is something I couldn't confirm, so ask Planning and Zoning directly.