Off-Grid Living in Acushnet, Massachusetts

If you're eyeing a piece of land in Acushnet for an off-grid setup, the first thing to know is that this town is not unzoned. Acushnet is divided into districts (Residence A, Business Village, Business/Commercial, Residential Village, and Industrial) under the town's Zoning Bylaw, Article VIII of the General By-Laws. That means what you can build and how you can use your land depends heavily on which district you land in, and I'd treat "raw land, do what you want" as a myth here. The bylaw states plainly that no land may be used or occupied, and no structure erected or altered, except as the bylaw allows, and some uses need a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals.

On dwellings: Massachusetts recently passed state legislation requiring towns to allow accessory dwelling units by right, and Acushnet's Planning Board has been working through amendments to bring the local bylaw into compliance. That's good news for tiny-home-as-ADU type plans, but I didn't find a confirmed Acushnet-specific minimum size rule or any provision letting you live in an RV as a permanent dwelling, so ask the Planning Board or Building Department directly before you commit to that plan.

Building permits run through the town's Building Department, which administers the state building code locally, handling permits, inspections, and energy code compliance. This is a state-level baseline with local administration, not a town inventing its own rules from scratch.

Septic is a big deal in Acushnet: about 40% of the town is on private water rather than the New Bedford public supply, and the Board of Health must approve the location and installation of any on-site water source, plus septic systems fall under the state's Title 5 regulations (310 CMR 15.000), enforced locally by the Board of Health. Composting toilets would likely need Board of Health sign-off as an alternative system, so that's a conversation to have early.

Greywater and rainwater harvesting are honestly gray areas here. I couldn't find an Acushnet-specific bylaw or Board of Health regulation on either topic, so the state's default Title 5 treatment of greywater as wastewater likely applies, and rainwater harvesting isn't addressed one way or the other in what I could find. Don't assume it's banned, but don't assume it's welcomed either, call the Board of Health.

Private wells are permitted but locally regulated, again through Board of Health approval, using a framework based on the state's MassDEP model well regulations.

As for living fully off-grid, disconnected from utilities: Massachusetts' State Housing Code covers habitability (structure, wiring, heat, water, sewage, minimum square footage), enforced locally by the Board of Health and Building Department. I didn't find an Acushnet bylaw specifically banning full utility disconnection, but housing code habitability standards could still be a practical obstacle.

Bottom line: nothing here says "off-grid is illegal," but almost everything routes through the Board of Health and Building Department, and several rules are mid-revision. Call before you buy or build.