Off-Grid Living in Wells County, North Dakota

Wells County, North Dakota sits in a spot that trips up a lot of off-grid researchers: it has a countywide Zoning Ordinance run by the Wells County Planning & Zoning department, but not every township in the county falls under it. A few townships (Wells Township, Western Township, and others) have kept their own local planning authority. So the very first thing I'd tell anyone looking at a parcel here is: find out whether that specific piece of land is inside the county's zoning jurisdiction or a township's before you assume anything about what's allowed.

Where the county ordinance does apply, agricultural and rural zones tend to be the most permissive for the kind of low-impact, self-sufficient living most off-gridders want. But I could not confirm, from any official Wells County source, a specific minimum dwelling size, tiny-home standard, or RV occupancy rule. Some tiny-home marketing sites claim the county has no guidelines at all, but that's not an official source, so I'm not treating it as confirmed. The state of North Dakota doesn't set a statewide minimum dwelling size either, it leaves that to local government, so this really comes down to a direct call to Planning & Zoning.

Building permits are handled locally in North Dakota generally, and Wells County Planning & Zoning is the department that would administer that, but I couldn't pin down specific permit thresholds or requirements from official pages.

Septic is one place I do have solid footing: onsite wastewater systems (septic tanks, drain fields, holding tanks, etc.) go through the Wells County District Health Department's Environmental Health division, which licenses installers and issues permits, working within a framework set by the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality at the state level. Composting toilets would likely fall under this same review, though I'd confirm that directly with the health department.

Greywater reuse is genuinely unclear, both at the state and county level, no explicit rule found either way. Rainwater harvesting looks fine by default since there's no county rule restricting it, and it inherits North Dakota's generally permissive state stance. Private wells are governed by state law (well construction and water appropriation are handled at the state level, not by the county), though Wells County's own Water Resource District handles local drainage and water-management matters and is worth a call if your well siting touches drainage concerns.

On living disconnected from utilities, I found nothing in Wells County's public-facing materials mandating a grid hookup, but I also haven't read the full zoning ordinance text line by line, so I can't rule out a buried clause. The state itself doesn't require grid connection.

Bottom line: Wells County is workable for off-grid living, especially on septic and rainwater, but several dimensions here genuinely need a phone call rather than a guess.