Off-Grid Living in St. George, Vermont

St. George is a tiny town in Chittenden County, Vermont, and I want to flag right away that it's zoned, not one of those unzoned rural towns you sometimes find off-grid folks gravitating toward. The town has adopted Land Use Regulations, administered by a Zoning Administrator, a Planning Commission, and a Development Review Board, and the state's own GIS data confirms mapped zoning districts covering the town. So if you're picturing raw land where you can do whatever you want, that's not quite the situation here, use and building on land is governed by those local regulations.

Where I hit a wall in my research is the actual text of St. George's Land Use Regulations. I could confirm the document exists and is posted by the town, but I could not pull the specific provisions on tiny homes, minimum dwelling size, or RV occupancy. That's a real gap, and it means anyone planning to build small or unconventional in St. George needs to call the Zoning Administrator (routed through the Town Office) and ask directly rather than assuming.

Building permits look like they'd flow through that same town process, but on top of any town permit, the State of Vermont, through the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), has statewide jurisdiction over wastewater and water supply permitting for any new building that needs a septic system or well, including cabins, yurts, and yomes. That's a state rule, not a town one, and it applies in St. George just as it does everywhere else in Vermont. So septic systems and composting toilet setups that involve wastewater disposal are going to run through DEC's permitting, administered regionally out of the office covering Chittenden County. The same statewide wastewater rules cover greywater reuse, I did not find any town-specific exemption for St. George.

Rainwater harvesting looks fine at the state level, I didn't find any St. George ordinance restricting catchment for non-potable use, so this seems to fall under general state guidance rather than town-specific restriction. Private wells are governed by the same state Wastewater System and Potable Water Supply Rules and the related state statute, with no added town-level well ordinance that I could find.

On living disconnected from utilities, I didn't find a St. George ordinance requiring hookup to municipal power, water, or sewer, and frankly most of the town doesn't have municipal water or sewer service anyway. That said, absence of a mandate isn't the same as a guarantee, and any onsite septic or water system you install will still need that state DEC permit regardless of whether you're "off-grid" in spirit.

Bottom line: St. George is zoned and small enough that the Town Office is your best first call for anything zoning or building related, and DEC is unavoidable for septic, greywater, or well work. Confirm specifics before you buy land or break ground, this is a research summary, not a substitute for a conversation with the actual Zoning Administrator.