Off-Grid Living in McCook County, South Dakota

If you're eyeing raw land in McCook County, South Dakota for an off-grid setup, here's what I found digging through official sources, and where the trail runs cold.

Zoning. McCook County does run a real Planning & Zoning Department, operating under the state's zoning enabling law, SDCL 11-2, which lets counties regulate lot size, building height, density, and land use. So this isn't a zoning-free county. The department also handles building permits, 911 addressing, plats, conditional use permits, and variances. But I could not find published dimensional standards or a detailed zoning map online, so for a specific parcel you'll want to call them directly.

Tiny homes, RVs, and dwellings. I found nothing McCook-specific on tiny houses, homes on wheels, or living in an RV full-time. The state does distinguish modular/sectional homes from mobile homes under SDCL 32-3-1(6), and a home on a permanent foundation would fall under whatever building code the county has adopted. Whether McCook County has formally adopted a specific code edition (like the 2021 IRC) isn't confirmed from what I could find, unlike neighboring Minnehaha County, which has explicitly adopted 2021 IBC codes. Call Planning & Zoning before you buy a tiny home or plan to live in an RV long-term.

Building permits. Confirmed: the county requires permits through Planning & Zoning, and there's a published fee schedule covering things like variance and conditional use applications, plus subdivision-related plat fees. I'm not listing exact dollar figures here since fee schedules change, so confirm current numbers with the office.

Septic and composting toilets. No McCook-specific septic ordinance turned up, but statewide, on-site wastewater systems fall under South Dakota's Administrative Rules Chapter 74:53:01. In many SD counties, Planning & Zoning also handles septic compliance, so that's likely your first call here too, though I couldn't independently confirm it for McCook.

Greywater and rainwater harvesting. I found no county or state page addressing either topic directly. Treat both as legally unclear here and ask the county office directly before setting up a reuse or catchment system.

Wells. Wells fall under the state's Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Water Rights Program, and state well construction standards. No McCook-specific well permitting process was found, so the state baseline applies.

Living off-grid, disconnected from utilities. No county ordinance bans this that I could find. Electrical work is licensed statewide through the SD Electrical Commission, though there's typically an owner's exemption for wiring your own home, a pattern I saw illustrated in other SD towns' guidance rather than something McCook-specific.

Bottom line: McCook County has real zoning and permitting infrastructure, but a lot of the off-grid-relevant specifics (tiny homes, greywater, rainwater, code editions adopted) simply aren't published anywhere I could access. That means more phone calls, not more Googling.