Off-Grid Living in Pomfret, Vermont

I've spent a while digging through Pomfret, Vermont's zoning ordinance and the state's wastewater rules, and here's what I can tell you as a starting map, not a substitute for a call to the town.

Pomfret is a zoned town. It has an adopted Zoning Ordinance (most recently amended in 2020, originally from 1989), administered by a Zoning Administrator, with a Zoning Board of Adjustment and Planning Commission handling appeals and discretionary calls. Most raw land you'd be looking at falls into the Rural District, which is meant to protect the town's working lands and rural character, small-scale residential, forestry, and agriculture. There's also a South Pomfret Village District, a Flood Hazard Overlay, and a Ridgeline and Hillside Conservation Overlay that can add restrictions depending on where a parcel sits. Anything not clearly permitted or prohibited in the ordinance gets treated as a conditional use, which means a review by the town, so don't assume silence means "go ahead."

On dwellings, I could not confirm specific town rules on tiny homes or RVs as full-time residences. The state's wastewater permitting language mentions "yurts, yomes, cabins" as building types requiring permits, which tells me the state at least contemplates alternative dwellings, but Pomfret's own bylaw text on this wasn't something I could pin down. Ask the Zoning Administrator directly before you commit to a structure type.

Building permits are required by the town for new residential construction, most renovation, and even things like ponds and home businesses, per the town's own annual report. Critically, Pomfret will not issue a building permit until you've got your sewage disposal (septic) permit and access permit in hand. That septic and water supply permitting is actually a state function: Vermont's Dept. of Environmental Conservation took universal jurisdiction over wastewater and potable water systems back in 2007, so any new septic, well, or non-conventional system (including likely greywater setups) runs through the state's Wastewater System and Potable Water Supply Permit process, administered regionally. The town just enforces that you have it before it will let you build.

Rainwater harvesting doesn't appear to have any specific town restriction, so I'd treat it as permitted under general state guidance, though I'd confirm nothing's changed locally.

Bottom line for going off-grid here: Pomfret has no municipal water or sewer system serving most of the town, so disconnecting from utilities isn't itself a problem. But you still have to run the standard gauntlet, state wastewater/water permit, then town building permit, regardless of how off-grid your intentions are.