Off-Grid Living in Scott County, Minnesota

Scott County, Minnesota is a mixed jurisdiction, and that matters more here than in most places I research. The county's Planning & Zoning Department only has authority in the county's eleven unincorporated townships. If your land sits inside a city, that city runs its own zoning, building, and utility rules entirely separately, so the first thing I'd do is figure out whether your parcel is in a township or a city before trusting anything below.

Zoning. In the townships, Scott County Zoning Ordinance No. 3 governs land use, setbacks, minimum lot sizes, and accessory structures. Notably, the ordinance treats anything not specifically allowed as prohibited, so if you're planning something unconventional (off-grid cabin, alternative structure), you want to check the district rules rather than assume it's fine by default.

Dwellings, tiny homes, RVs. I could not find an official Scott County page that spells out square-footage minimums for tiny homes or whether an RV can count as a permanent dwelling. Commercial "off-grid guide" sites make claims here, but I'm not going to repeat them as fact since they aren't sourced to the county. Call Planning & Zoning directly before you buy or place a structure.

Building permits. The county has adopted the Minnesota State Building Code (Ordinance No. 10) for the townships, enforced by a county-designated Certified Building Official under state rule. Plumbing, mechanical, sewer, and electrical work each need their own permits, and electrical permits actually route through the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, not the county.

Septic. Permitted, but regulated. The county's SSTS ordinance (Ordinance No. 4) implements state MPCA rules. Worth knowing: if a failing septic system is an immediate health threat, state law sets a fix deadline; lower-risk failures get longer replacement windows depending on groundwater sensitivity. Composting toilets fall under state rules (MN Rules 7080/7081); I found no county-specific restriction on them.

Greywater and rainwater. Neither has a standalone county ordinance that I could find. Greywater would fall under the same SSTS/state rules as septic; rainwater catchment isn't addressed locally at all, though anything plumbed indoors would run through the state building code via the county's plumbing permit process.

Wells. Permitted, following Minnesota Department of Health well code, not a separate county code. The county runs a helpful well-water testing program through Environmental Services, and unused wells must be sealed by a licensed contractor or reported annually, per state law.

Off-grid utility disconnection. Genuinely unclear. No ordinance I found either requires a grid hookup or blesses full disconnection outright; it seems to fall through the cracks between septic/well rules (which do cover water/wastewater self-sufficiency) and electrical, which isn't addressed anywhere official I found.

Bottom line: this is very much a "confirm before you build" county, especially since city versus township jurisdiction changes everything.