Off-Grid Living in Livingston County, New York

Livingston County, New York is one of those places where the county government sets some of the water/wastewater rules, but nearly everything else in off-grid planning, zoning, building permits, whether a tiny house or RV counts as a legal dwelling, comes down to which town you're in. There's no countywide zoning code here. I want to be upfront about that because it means I can't give you one universal answer for "can I live off-grid in Livingston County." I can tell you what the county controls and what it hands off.

Zoning and land use are entirely town/village matters, Geneseo, Livonia, Groveland, Mount Morris, Nunda, and the rest each write and enforce their own zoning ordinances. The Livingston County Planning Board only gets an advisory look at certain applications under state law (General Municipal Law §239-l/m/n), and towns aren't bound by its recommendations except in narrow override situations. So before you buy land, call the specific town's zoning office.

Dwellings, tiny homes, and RVs: I found no county-level rule addressing this. It's governed by each town's zoning and building code, which in turn follows the NYS Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code. Whether a THOW or RV can be a permanent residence is a town-by-town call, confirm with that town's Code Enforcement Officer.

Building permits are issued and administered by town Code Enforcement Officers, though the county's Board of Supervisors adopted a local law framework establishing what those officers can do (issue permits, certificates of occupancy, operating permits, etc.). The permit itself, though, comes from the town.

Where the county steps in directly is water and wastewater. The Livingston County Department of Health, Environmental Health Division, requires its own septic (individual wastewater treatment system) permit before you build, going beyond just following state code, you apply through the county's Environmental Health office. Same story with wells: New York State doesn't require a state permit for a private well, but Livingston County does, a Water Well Supply Permit issued locally, with well construction still needing a DEC-registered driller and adherence to NYS DOH Appendix 5-B standards. The county also permits closed-loop geothermal well systems separately.

Greywater and rainwater harvesting have no county-specific ordinances that I could find. Both fall back to the state baseline, rainwater catchment for non-potable use is generally fine, greywater reuse is technically addressed under state sanitary code but tricky to implement legally without local guidance, so it's worth asking Environmental Health directly.

Living off-grid from utilities, no electric, no municipal water, no phone line, isn't banned countywide as far as I found, but individual towns may have code language that effectively requires hookups. Again, that's a call to make to your specific town.

Bottom line: for water and septic, deal with the county. For everything else, the town is your authority, and Livingston County's own planning department will tell you the same thing.