Off-Grid Living in Holderness, New Hampshire

I'll be upfront: this is research, not legal advice, and not a project I've personally built in Holderness. What follows comes from the Town's own ordinance and permit pages plus New Hampshire DES material, so treat it as a solid starting map, then confirm details with the offices below before you buy land or break ground.

Zoning is real here. Holderness has an adopted Zoning Ordinance with several districts shown on an official map, and a Compliance Officer enforces it. Minimum lot sizes run at least 1 acre in the GR, RR, CD, and FH districts, and at least 2 acres in the RC district (soil and slope can push that higher). If you want a use that isn't spelled out in the ordinance, it goes to the Zoning Board of Adjustment, which weighs environmental and site impact before granting anything.

Dwellings, tiny homes, RVs: I could not find town language specifically addressing tiny houses on wheels or RVs as permanent dwellings in the materials I reviewed. The ordinance does define dwelling types and requires Site Plan Review for development, but the tiny-home/RV question is genuinely open here, call the Compliance Officer before you plan around it.

Building permits are required town-wide, and the Compliance Officer's office administers and enforces both the zoning and building rules.

Septic is where New Hampshire's state government, not the town, does the heavy lifting. NHDES's Subsurface Systems Bureau reviews and approves septic designs before any system is installed, replaced, or expanded. Holderness's Health Officer publishes a local information sheet to walk residents through that state process, but the approval authority is DES. Composting toilets aren't separately addressed in what I found, so ask the Health Officer directly if that's your plan.

Greywater: no Holderness-specific rule turned up, and I didn't find a dedicated statewide DES residential greywater rule either. In practice greywater handling tends to get folded into your septic design through a licensed designer, but this is a gap worth asking DES or a local designer about directly.

Rainwater harvesting: nothing in the town ordinance restricts collecting rainwater, and state plumbing code (enforced locally) governs indoor use. Treat this as permitted, but not rubber-stamped for indoor potable use.

Wells and utilities: this is the big one for off-grid dreamers. New Hampshire DES rule is plain: any structure connected to a water supply must also be connected to a wastewater disposal system, whether that's a sewer hookup or an individual septic system. That effectively means you can't legally have a well without also having an approved wastewater setup, which limits how "disconnected" you can truly go. I found no separate Holderness ordinance forcing you onto the electric grid or a municipal system, but the town doesn't appear to run municipal sewer anyway, so most properties are on private septic by default.

Bottom line: zoning and building enforcement are local, septic and well/wastewater linkage are state rules administered by DES with town coordination, and several off-grid specifics (tiny homes, RVs, greywater, composting toilets) simply aren't spelled out yet in what's publicly posted. That's not a green light or a red light, it's a "go ask" situation.