Off-Grid Living in Edgartown, Massachusetts

Edgartown, on Martha's Vineyard, is fully zoned, so anyone thinking about off-grid living here needs to plan around a fairly active local bylaw and health regulation regime, not a legal vacuum. I dug into the town's own zoning, health, water and wastewater department pages to see what's actually on the books, and here's what I found.

Zoning. Edgartown Town Hall maintains a current Zoning Bylaw, and it's not a one-size-fits-all document. The R-5 district, for example, sets a minimum lot area (10,000 sq ft), plus front and side/rear setbacks. Other districts, like R-60, have different minimums. The town is also actively revising its bylaws to cap accessory dwelling sizes and overall residential floor area, so what's buildable on a given lot can shift year to year. Some areas, like the Cape Pogue District, also fall under review by the Martha's Vineyard Commission, a regional body with its own say. Bottom line: check your specific parcel's district with the Zoning Department before assuming anything.

Dwellings, tiny homes, RVs. I didn't find an Edgartown-specific exemption for tiny houses or RVs as permanent residences. The state's Appendix Q baseline for tiny homes may apply, but the town's ongoing bylaw work on dwelling size and accessory units suggests local minimums are real and enforced. Whether an RV can legally serve as a full-time home here isn't confirmed in anything I found, call the Building Department directly.

Building permits. The Building Inspector enforces both the state building code and the local zoning bylaw, including any special permit conditions attached to a project. This is a locally administered process even though it draws on the state code.

Septic and greywater. The Edgartown Board of Health administers Title 5 (the state's septic code) locally and keeps its own Board of Health Regulations. Big change coming: the town's health agent has said Edgartown will likely be swept into new nitrogen-sensitive-area septic rules, which he's called potentially the biggest shift in Massachusetts on-site wastewater regulation to date. If you're planning a septic system or composting toilet setup, this is worth a direct call to the Board of Health, since greywater itself doesn't have a separate town exemption and falls under the same Title 5 wastewater framework.

Rainwater and wells. I found no town-specific rainwater ordinance; outdoor collection looks unrestricted, while indoor potable use follows the state plumbing/Title 5 baseline. Edgartown's own water supply is municipal groundwater with an active Wellhead Protection Plan under state DEP rules. Private wells outside town water fall under Board of Health jurisdiction for siting and construction.

Going off-grid entirely. No bylaw bans it outright, but new construction typically needs sign-off from multiple departments (Wastewater, Building, Board of Health, Water, Conservation), so cutting utility ties doesn't mean cutting out permitting.

Confidence here is medium: town-level sources are solid, but several dimensions (RVs, greywater specifics) aren't spelled out and need a direct call.