Off-Grid Living in Fulton County, New York

I'll be upfront: Fulton County, New York is one of those places where "county rules" mostly don't exist for zoning and building. The county itself, seated in Johnstown, has no unified zoning ordinance. Instead, each town (and the cities of Gloversville and Johnstown) writes and enforces its own zoning and building codes through its own Code Enforcement Office. The Fulton County Planning Department plays a coordinating and advisory role, helping towns with comprehensive plans and site plan review, and the Fulton County Planning Board reviews certain referred actions under New York General Municipal Law §239-m for regional impacts, but neither body issues permits for your specific parcel.

That means for zoning, raw-land occupancy, tiny homes, RVs, building permits, greywater, and utility disconnection, I could not find a Fulton County-specific ordinance during this research. These fall back to whatever the individual town's code says, layered on top of the New York State Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code baseline that applies statewide. Practically, this means your experience could differ a lot depending on whether your land sits in, say, the Town of Bleecker versus the Town of Mayfield. I'd call the relevant town's Code Enforcement Office directly, and the county Planning Department can point you to the right one if you're not sure who that is.

Septic and wells are a bit more solid: Fulton County Public Health, currently directed by Laurel Headwell, is the active local health authority handling septic and well evaluations. They administer these under the New York State Department of Health's technical standard known as Appendix 75-A for residential onsite wastewater systems. I couldn't find a county-specific fee schedule or ordinance number on the county's own site, so treat "county health department administers under state standards" as the confirmed baseline and ask them directly for specifics like composting toilet approval or well permitting details.

Rainwater harvesting doesn't appear to have any Fulton County-specific restriction I could locate, so it likely follows New York's general permissive stance with typical storage and setback considerations, though I'd confirm nothing local has been added.

Bottom line: this is a county where the real answers live at the town level and at Fulton County Public Health for water/septic. Don't assume county silence means "anything goes," it means "ask your specific town."