Off-Grid Living in Shiawassee County, Michigan

If you're eyeing off-grid land in Shiawassee County, Michigan, the first thing I'd get straight is who actually governs your parcel. This trips people up constantly. Shiawassee County's zoning ordinance only applies to unincorporated townships. Incorporated cities and villages, and any township that's opted to run its own zoning department (Perry Township is a documented example), set their own rules entirely. So before you take anything below as gospel, call and confirm whether your specific parcel falls under the county Community Development Department or a local township/city office.

For land that IS under county zoning, the ordinance sets up agricultural districts (A-1, A-2, A-3) with different limits on how many single-family dwellings are allowed and how much land can be devoted to housing versus farming, tighter on the best farmland. I did not find a countywide minimum dwelling size or specific tiny-home/RV occupancy rule in the official ordinance text. Third-party sites claim tiny homes are allowed in "parts of" the county, but that's not something I can confirm officially, so treat it as a lead to verify with Community Development or your township, not a fact.

Building permits follow Michigan's statewide construction code baseline, administered locally through the county's Community Development office for unincorporated areas. I didn't find any county-specific additions or exemptions to the state code.

Septic is where Shiawassee County gets notably more hands-on than the state minimum. The county Health Department's Environmental Health Division runs its own On-Site Sewage Disposal System (OWSDS) ordinance. Sellers need a compliance letter from Environmental Health before a property sale, owners are on the hook for maintenance, and the county keeps a list of certified inspectors and licensed septage haulers. Composting toilets aren't addressed separately in anything I found, so I'd assume you'd need Environmental Health sign-off as an alternative system rather than assuming it's a free pass.

Greywater and rainwater harvesting don't have county-specific ordinances that I could locate, so both default to Michigan's state plumbing code framework, which is generally permissive.

Private wells are permitted, with the county Health Department handling permitting under authority delegated by the state's Well Construction Code. That covers private wells and smaller shared systems. If you're planning any large-quantity water withdrawal (the state's threshold sits at 70 gallons per day or more), that kicks you into a separate registration process through Michigan EGLE's Water Use Program, at the state level, not the county.

On full utility disconnection: nothing explicitly bans going off-grid on power or public water/sewer, but in practice you can't just skip infrastructure. The county requires an approved well permit and a compliant septic system to occupy a dwelling, which functionally means you're building real infrastructure even while off the public grid.

Bottom line: confirm your governing authority first, then expect the septic and well rules to be the real gatekeepers here, not zoning.