Off-Grid Living in Friendship, Maine

Friendship, Maine is a zoned town, not one of the handful of unorganized townships in the state where "no zoning" attracts off-grid buyers. The town administers its own Land Use Ordinance, Shoreland Zoning Ordinance, Flood Plain Management Ordinance, Site Plan Review Ordinance, Subdivision Ordinance, and Wellhead Protection Ordinance, all under Maine's home-rule framework. That means anyone eyeing land here for an off-grid setup is working within town rules first, state rules second, not the other way around.

On zoning and raw land, the Land Use and Shoreland Zoning Ordinances set district-based use standards town-wide, and larger projects may trigger site plan or subdivision review. I could not find explicit tiny-home or RV-as-permanent-dwelling language in what's publicly retrievable of the ordinance, so that's genuinely unclear, confirm with the Code Enforcement Officer before you buy an RV thinking you can live in it long-term.

Building permits are handled locally: Friendship's Code Enforcement/Plumbing office issues building permits, and the town posts an application. Whether Friendship enforces the state's MUBEC code directly or via local adoption wasn't confirmed in what I found, so ask the Code Enforcement Officer.

Septic is the clearest picture. Friendship's Local Plumbing Inspector administers septic and internal plumbing permits under the state's Subsurface Wastewater Disposal Rules (Maine CDC, CMR 241). Composting toilets and portable toilets fall under this framework too; the state rule allows temporary portable toilets for a short period, but beyond that you need written sign-off from the Local Plumbing Inspector. Greywater disposal runs through the same state rule and the same town application, no separate greywater ban was found.

Rainwater harvesting has no town-specific ordinance that I could locate, so the state's default (no dedicated permit or prohibition) likely applies, but that's not fully confirmed at the town level.

Private wells generally follow Maine's Water Well Commission rules rather than a town permit, except that Friendship's Wellhead Protection Ordinance may restrict siting near protection zones.

Living fully disconnected from utilities isn't explicitly addressed or banned in what I found, but state law is blunt on one point: you can't erect a structure requiring a subsurface wastewater system until you've shown the municipality the system can be built to code. So going off-grid on power is one thing; skipping proper wastewater disposal is not an option regardless of grid connection.

Bottom line: Friendship is workable for off-grid living, but it runs through real permitting, not a loophole. Several specifics (RV/tiny home rules, full building code adoption, utility-disconnection language) need a direct call to the town before you commit.