Off-Grid Living in Union County, Ohio

If you're looking at raw land in Union County, Ohio and dreaming about going off-grid, the first thing I have to tell you is: there is no such thing as a "Union County zoning office." Ohio counties generally don't zone, townships and municipalities do, under their own authority (townships via Ohio Revised Code Chapter 519, cities like Marysville via ORC 713). So whether you can even put a dwelling on a given parcel depends entirely on which township you're in, Jerome, Allen, or another, and you need to call that township's zoning inspector directly. The Logan-Union-Champaign Regional Planning Commission (LUC) can point you to the right one if you're not sure.

Once you know your township's zoning allows what you want, building permits come from a countywide authority: the Union County Building Department, which also handles plan review for the City of Marysville. There's a notable carve-out under state law, ORC 3781.061, that lets a township zoning inspector exempt genuinely agricultural buildings from building code review, but that's a determination the inspector makes, not something you can assume applies to a residence or an off-grid cabin. Manufactured and HUD-standard homes are installed under Ohio Department of Commerce manufactured home rules, with placement inspections handled by the county Building Department or a certified third party. Tiny house and RV occupancy standards (minimum size, foundation, etc.) are set township by township, I couldn't confirm a single countywide rule.

For water and waste, the Union County Health Department is your authority. Septic (household sewage treatment) systems are permitted and inspected under Ohio Revised Code 3718 and Ohio Administrative Code 3701-29, and the county's Board of Health has adopted a five-year permit renewal cycle, shorter than the state's general ten-year maximum, so confirm that with them directly. Composting toilets aren't addressed on the county's public pages that I found. Private wells and cisterns fall under the Health Department's private water system permitting (OAC 3701-28), and you'll need to file a permit application before drilling a well or installing another private water source. Rainwater harvesting for drinking purposes gets folded into that same private water system permitting scheme; I didn't find a rainwater-specific county rule. Greywater reuse similarly has no county-specific policy that I could confirm, so I'd assume the state framework applies and check with the Health Department before building any greywater system.

On full utility disconnection: I found no Union County or township rule that outright bans living off the electric or municipal water/sewer grid. But that doesn't mean it's a free-for-all, any dwelling still has to meet Ohio Residential Code requirements through the Building Department, and any on-site water or waste system still has to go through the same Health Department permitting as a grid-connected home. In short: off-grid living looks achievable here, but it's a patchwork of township zoning, county building code, and county health permitting, not a single greenlight.