Off-Grid Living in New Shoreham, Rhode Island

I'll be straight with you: Block Island (New Shoreham, RI) is not a place to try to quietly homestead off-grid. It's a fully zoned town, and the local rules are unusually explicit about tying occupancy to wastewater systems.

Zoning. New Shoreham's Zoning Ordinance runs under Rhode Island's state enabling law (the Rhode Island Zoning Enabling Act of 1991), but the town itself has built out detailed districts: RA, RB, RC, and RC/Mixed Use residential zones, plus Historic and Flood overlays. Raw land use is governed district by district, and if you want to deviate from the dimensional rules, you're looking at going before the Zoning Board of Review for a variance. There's no by-right "just go build in the woods" option here.

Dwellings, tiny homes, RVs. This is the part that surprised me doing this research: the Town directly limits how many people can occupy a dwelling based on its wastewater hookup. Homes without an approved onsite wastewater system (OWTS) or public sewer connection are capped at one person per bedroom. That's a strong signal the Town doesn't recognize informal housing, tiny homes on wheels, or RVs as legal permanent residences outside the normal building and zoning permit process.

Building permits. The Building Department administers the statewide RI State Building Code through the state's e-permitting portal. Starting work without a permit exposes you to fines. I didn't find any rural or small-structure exemption specific to New Shoreham.

Septic and composting toilets. Septic (OWTS) design and installation must go through a DEM-licensed designer and installer, per state Department of Environmental Management rules. Locally, occupancy allowances double (to two people per bedroom) once a home is properly connected to an approved OWTS. I found nothing confirming that a standalone composting toilet, without a permitted system for the rest of your plumbing, satisfies the Town's rules.

Greywater and rainwater. No New Shoreham-specific greywater ordinance turned up in my research, so the state DEM baseline applies, meaning it's restricted rather than freely permitted. Rainwater harvesting looks fine: I found no town rule against it, so the general state allowance should apply, but confirm nothing has changed with the Building Department.

Wells and utilities. New Shoreham runs a municipal Water Department in parts of town, but private wells are regulated at the state level by the RI Department of Health, and I didn't find a town-level prohibition. That said, given how tightly occupancy is linked to sewer/OWTS connection here, going fully off the utility grid for water and waste and calling it a legal permanent residence isn't something the ordinance appears to support.

Bottom line: if you're dreaming of an off-grid cabin on Block Island, budget for real permits and a real septic system, and call the Zoning and Building offices before you buy land.