Off-Grid Living in Bergen County, New Jersey

I'll be upfront: Bergen County itself doesn't have countywide zoning. Under New Jersey's Municipal Land Use Law, each of Bergen County's roughly 70 towns runs its own zoning and building department. So the honest answer to "can I live off-grid here" is: it depends entirely on which town you're looking at, and I can't give you a single county-wide yes or no on zoning, dwelling types, or utility disconnection.

What the County does control directly is health and environmental oversight, specifically septic systems and private wells, through the Bergen County Department of Health Services (Consumer Health division). That office maintains oversight of septic installation, repair, and alteration, and separately oversees private well installation, abandonment, and water quality monitoring. This work happens under New Jersey's Uniform Construction Code and the state's Private Well Testing Act, but the county health department is the office that actually administers it day to day, and some towns route their septic plan review through this same office.

On building permits, every municipality issues permits under the state's Uniform Construction Code, but Bergen County runs a Construction Board of Appeals for people who want to appeal a local building department's decision. That's a countywide backstop, not a first-line permitting office.

For zoning specifically, whether raw land can be occupied, whether tiny homes or RVs count as legal dwellings, whether you need to hook to municipal water and sewer, none of that is decided at the county level. You'll need to call your specific town's zoning and building departments. I found examples of towns like Hackensack, Glen Rock, Midland Park, Northvale, and Park Ridge each running their own building departments independently, which underscores how fragmented this is.

Greywater and rainwater harvesting are genuinely unclear here. I could not find a Bergen County ordinance or health department page addressing either one, so this inherits the same ambiguity that exists at the New Jersey state level, where DEP regulates larger-scale reclaimed water reuse but hasn't published a clear residential greywater code. If you're planning a greywater or rain catchment system, I'd call the county health department first since they're the office closest to this topic, then check with your town.

Bottom line for utility disconnection: no county ordinance requires you to connect to public water or sewer, but getting a Certificate of Occupancy from your town's building department typically requires an approved water supply and sewage disposal method, meaning a permitted well and septic system. That's a municipal enforcement point, but the well and septic permits themselves flow through the county health department.