Off-Grid Living in Harpswell, Maine

I've been digging into what off-grid living actually looks like town by town in Maine, and Harpswell is a good example of how "coastal Maine" and "zoned" go hand in hand. Some people assume a small peninsula town like this is loosely regulated. It isn't. Harpswell is fully zoned, with its own Basic Land Use Ordinance plus a Shoreland Zoning Ordinance that layers on extra rules for anything within 250 feet of the high water line of a great pond or tidal wetland (that boundary comes from state law, 38 M.R.S.A. §§ 435-449, but the town administers it). Given how much of Harpswell touches the coast, I'd assume most parcels here brush up against shoreland zoning at least in part, so that's the first thing to check with the town.

For building, Harpswell's Code Enforcement Office runs the show. Their own permit list (found on the town's site) includes a Building/Land Use Application, a Shoreland Use Minor Application, a Shoreland Use Application for wharves, flood hazard applications, blasting applications, and even a solar panel application. That's a lot of paperwork touchpoints, and it tells me the town takes permitting seriously even for smaller projects. Tim Clark is listed as the Code Enforcement Officer and Local Plumbing Inspector, so he's the person who'd field questions on building and septic both.

On dwellings, tiny homes and RVs, I want to be honest about the gaps in what I found. I did not find an official Harpswell page that spells out RV or tiny-home rules directly. There's a general Maine framework floating around (permits for RV placement under a certain number of days, then a well/leach field requirement beyond that), but I could not confirm that as an official Harpswell-specific rule, so treat it as background, not gospel, and ask the Code Enforcement Office directly before you park or build.

Septic is more straightforward: Harpswell uses the state's HHE-211 and HHE-200A forms, processed locally through the town's plumbing inspector. Composting toilets seem to fall under the same state Subsurface Wastewater Disposal Rules baseline, and I didn't find any Harpswell-specific ban or extra hurdle for them.

Greywater and rainwater harvesting are both areas where I simply couldn't find a Harpswell ordinance, official or otherwise. That doesn't mean anything goes; it likely means these fall under general state plumbing rules or haven't been specifically addressed. Private wells look similar: no town-specific well ordinance found, so I'd expect the state Water Well Commission's construction standards to apply, with the town's plumbing inspector handling the tie-in to your house system.

As for living fully off-grid, disconnected from utilities: Harpswell doesn't seem to have a standalone ordinance on this. It's more that you'd end up needing to comply with the Basic Land Use Ordinance, Shoreland Zoning Ordinance, and state septic/plumbing rules anyway, all enforced through the same Code Enforcement Office. My bottom line: call Tim Clark's office before you buy land or start building. A lot of what matters here depends on exactly where your parcel sits relative to the shoreland zone.