Off-Grid Living in Douglas County, Washington

I've been digging through Douglas County, Washington's rules for anyone thinking about living off-grid out near Waterville, East Wenatchee, or the open county land between them. Here's what I found, and where the record gets thin.

Zoning first. Douglas County zoning under Title 18 of the county code applies to unincorporated land, but if you're inside one of the five urban growth areas (Bridgeport, East Wenatchee, Waterville, Mansfield, Rock Island), the town's own zoning code takes over instead. So "can I do this on my land" really depends on whether you're inside or outside a UGA boundary, and that's a call for Douglas County Transportation and Land Services or the relevant town to confirm before you buy or build.

Dwellings and RVs. Standard construction, including a house, goes through the county's Permit Center. I did not find an official Douglas County page spelling out how long you can live in an RV or tiny home on wheels, so treat that as unconfirmed and call the Permit Center directly. Small accessory structures like tool sheds under 200 square feet are exempt from permits, but that exemption doesn't let you skip the building code for anything bigger.

Building permits run through Title 15 of the county code, which adopts the state's International Codes and Uniform Plumbing Code, nothing county-specific beyond standard state-code administration. Access to your parcel also has to satisfy the county's road standards under Title 12 before the county engineer signs off on a building permit.

Septic and greywater are both handled by the Chelan-Douglas Health District (CDHD), a joint two-county health department, not an internal Douglas County office. CDHD requires a licensed designer or engineer to evaluate your soil and site before approving a system type, and greywater is folded into that same onsite septic permit rather than regulated separately. Composting toilets fall under the same state framework (WAC 246-272A) with no Douglas County carve-out that I could find.

Rainwater harvesting has no Douglas County-specific page that I could locate. The state Department of Ecology's general allowance for non-potable use is the best baseline until someone at the county or CDHD tells you otherwise.

Wells are governed by the state's exempt-well statute, RCW 90.44.050: you can drill without a full water right for stock watering, garden irrigation under half an acre, or domestic use under 5,000 gallons a day. CDHD's Land Use program reviews these determinations locally, and Ecology's Central Region office in Union Gap is the enforcement contact if you need more.

Full utility disconnection isn't addressed as its own category anywhere I found. In practice, going off-grid here just means satisfying the building, septic, and water-source rules above one at a time, there's no separate "off-grid permit."

Bottom line: Douglas County's rules are mostly standard state-code administration layered with a shared regional health district, but several off-grid specifics (RV occupancy limits, rainwater rules, disconnection policy) simply aren't spelled out publicly, so a phone call before you commit is worth it.