Off-Grid Living in Genesee County, Michigan

Genesee County, Michigan is a patchwork when it comes to off-grid living, and understanding which authority handles what is half the battle.

First, the big structural fact: Genesee County itself has no countywide zoning ordinance. Zoning power in Michigan sits with cities and townships under the state Zoning Enabling Act, and the county's roughly 30 townships and cities (Genesee Township, Gaines Township, Mundy Township, and so on) each write and enforce their own rules. That means whether you can live in an RV, park a tiny home, or build off the beaten path on raw land depends entirely on which township your parcel sits in. There's no substitute for calling that specific township's zoning office before you buy or build.

Building permits follow the same pattern: townships and cities run their own building departments, enforcing the state's Building Code (Genesee Township, for example, uses the 2021 Michigan Building Code) with electrical, plumbing, and mechanical permits ultimately tied to the state's Bureau of Construction Codes under LARA. The county's Planning Department coordinates regional planning but doesn't issue building permits itself.

Where the county does step in directly is health and environmental matters. The Genesee County Health Department, through its Environmental Health division, handles septic and well permitting countywide, under authority granted by the state's Public Health Code. You'll need a soil evaluation before a septic permit is issued (valid for a set number of years), and I'd flag that the county has in the past imposed a seasonal moratorium on new septic installations during winter months, so timing matters, confirm current status with the Health Department directly. Composting toilets aren't separately addressed on the county's site as far as I could find, so I'd assume they fall under the same on-site sewage permitting framework unless the Health Department tells you otherwise.

Private wells go through the same Health Department, administering the state's Water Well Construction Code locally. Greywater reuse and rainwater harvesting don't appear to have county-specific rules; my read is these default to the state plumbing code as administered by LARA, since I found nothing county-specific on either topic.

On full utility disconnection, I couldn't find an explicit county ban or blessing. But practically speaking, since sanitary waste disposal plans must be approved by the Health Department before a building permit is issued, and building permits happen at the township level, you'd need approved well and septic permits regardless of whether you're tied to public utilities. So "off-grid" here means navigating both a township's zoning/building rules and the county's health department requirements, not one or the other.

My overall take: this is a county where the paperwork trail runs through two different levels of government, and skipping the township call because you talked to the county (or vice versa) is a common and costly mistake.