Off-Grid Living in Dorchester, New Hampshire

I'll be upfront with you: Dorchester, New Hampshire is one of those small towns where the official paper trail online is thin, and I'd rather tell you that plainly than pretend I found a zoning ordinance that isn't there.

Zoning. I could not locate a published zoning ordinance for Dorchester, nor any official page declaring the town unzoned. What I did find is the town's contact page, which shows that Select Board business, including building permits, pistol permits, intent to cut, and use of town property, is handled by the Select Board Administrative Assistant. There's no separate zoning administrator or planning board office listed. That pattern (a small Select Board doing double duty) is common in unzoned or lightly-zoned New Hampshire towns, but it's an inference on my part, not a confirmed fact. If you're serious about buying land here, call the Select Board office directly and ask point-blank whether Dorchester has adopted zoning under the state's RSA 674 framework.

Dwellings, tiny homes, RVs. No town-specific rule turned up in my research. Until someone at the town confirms otherwise, treat this as unclear rather than assuming it's wide open.

Building permits. This one I can confirm has a process, even if I don't have the details: the Select Board Administrative Assistant issues building permits for Dorchester. There's no separate building inspector's office named on the town site.

Septic and composting toilets. Dorchester doesn't appear to have its own septic ordinance, so this falls back to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services' Subsurface Systems Bureau, which regulates septic design and permitting statewide. Any septic system you install will need to meet that state baseline at minimum, and it's worth checking whether the town layers on anything additional.

Greywater and rainwater. I found nothing specific to Dorchester on either front, and no obvious state rule that clearly covers small-scale residential greywater or rainwater harvesting either. This is genuinely unclear territory, so ask before you build a system and assume it's fine.

Wells. No town-specific well ordinance surfaced. The default here is New Hampshire's Water Well Board rules, which set statewide standards for private wells.

Off-grid utilities. I didn't find any Dorchester health ordinance or subdivision rule requiring you to hook up to utilities, but absence of evidence isn't the same as confirmation there's no such rule.

The honest bottom line: Dorchester is small enough that a lot of this likely gets decided informally, town official to landowner, rather than through published code. That's not necessarily bad news for off-grid living, small unzoned or lightly-regulated towns are often exactly where people go to do this, but you need to verify it yourself with a phone call rather than relying on my search of the town's website.