Off-Grid Living in Mont Vernon, New Hampshire

I've been digging into what it would actually take to live off-grid in Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, and here's my honest read after going through the town's own documents.

Mont Vernon is a zoned town, plain and simple, with the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Adjustment running the show locally. The zoning ordinance carves out multiple districts, including a Managed Commercial & Conservation Zone and separate wetland and floodplain rules, so what you can do with raw land really depends on which district your parcel sits in. I didn't find a simple town-wide answer on things like minimum lot size for a dwelling or whether informal camping is allowed, so if you're eyeing a specific lot, that's a question for the Planning Board, not a guess I'm willing to make.

On dwellings, tiny homes, and RVs, I came up empty on any dedicated Mont Vernon provision. That doesn't mean it's banned, it means the ordinance likely handles it through general "dwelling" definitions, and anything unusual would probably need to go before the Zoning Board of Adjustment for interpretation or a special exception.

Building permits are very much required, administered locally by the Building Inspector/Code Enforcer. What stood out to me is how tightly the town ties the permit application to your water and waste setup: you need a lot plan showing your well and septic locations, plus a copy of state approval for your sewage disposal system from NH DES. That's a real requirement, not optional paperwork.

Septic is where state and local rules overlap. New Hampshire's baseline rule, which Mont Vernon enforces through its permit process, is that any structure connected to a water supply must also be connected to a wastewater system. But if you're not piping in water, RSA 147:8 at the state level allows privies (composting or outhouse-style, no water involved) as long as your local health officer signs off on location and construction. In Mont Vernon, that's the Health Officer's call.

Greywater reuse is genuinely unclear here. I couldn't find a town ordinance addressing it one way or another, and the health department material I found focuses on septic tank maintenance, not greywater diversion. I'd call that one unconfirmed rather than guess.

Rainwater harvesting looks fine, inherited from the state building and plumbing code rather than restricted locally. No Mont Vernon-specific rule turned up either way.

Private wells are permitted and state-licensed under the NH Water Well Board, and the town folds well location into its building permit lot plan requirement.

Living fully disconnected from utilities seems conditionally workable: if you skip piped water entirely, you may sidestep the mandatory septic hookup, but everything still runs through the Building Inspector and Health Officer on a case-by-case basis. I found no outright town ban on off-grid utility disconnection, but I also found no clean blanket permission.