Buying Land in Griggs County, North Dakota

The 2014 elimination of Griggs County zoning: what we found, and what to verify

This is the most consequential, and most county-specific, finding for Griggs County land buyers. County commission proceedings from January 17, 2014 record a motion, passed unanimously by all five commissioners then serving, to eliminate the position of Zoning Administrator and to eliminate the Griggs County Planning Commission, effective immediately. That is a documented action by the county's own governing body, not a secondhand characterization.

What we could not fully confirm is the county's current status 12 years later. Griggs County's current published list of county departments -- Auditor, Clerk of Court, DES (emergency services), Extension, Recorder, Road, Sheriff, Social Services, States Attorney, Tax Director, Treasurer, and Veteran Service -- does not include a Planning and Zoning department, which is at least consistent with the 2014 elimination never having been reversed. But an absence from a department list is not the same as an authoritative current statement that the county has no zoning at all, and North Dakota counties can and do re-adopt zoning after a lapse. Before making any assumption about what you can or can't do with a specific Griggs County parcel, call the Griggs County Auditor's office directly and ask, in plain terms, whether the county currently administers any zoning or building-permit requirement for unincorporated land -- and get that answer in writing if it will affect your purchase decision.

What that means in practice, and what still applies regardless

If Griggs County's zoning apparatus genuinely remains eliminated, the practical effect is that unincorporated county land may not be subject to county-level use restrictions or a countywide building-permit process -- consistent with North Dakota's broader pattern (covered at the state level) of building-code enforcement being opt-in by jurisdiction, and of some counties never having adopted zoning at all under Century Code Chapter 11-33's discretionary framework. That can mean more flexibility for a buyer's own plans, but it also means there's no county zoning office standing by to confirm what a neighboring landowner is or isn't allowed to do, and no county-level dispute-resolution mechanism for a land-use conflict -- something to factor into due diligence, not just treat as a bonus.

This does not affect the county's three incorporated cities -- Cooperstown, Binford, and Hannaford -- each of which retains its own separate municipal ordinance and zoning authority inside its city limits regardless of what the county does. If a parcel of interest is inside or adjacent to one of these cities, that city's government is the one to contact for zoning and building-permit questions, not the county.

Septic: administered by Nelson-Griggs, inspected by Grand Forks Public Health

Septic (onsite sewage treatment system) oversight for Griggs County has an unusual two-layer structure. The Nelson-Griggs District Health Unit, based in McVille, holds administrative responsibility for the county, but it draws on Environmental Health services from Grand Forks Public Health to actually perform inspections and investigate environmental-health concerns, including onsite sewer and septic-facility inspections and permits. In practice, this means the office that ultimately handles a Griggs County septic permit or inspection question is likely to be Grand Forks Public Health's Environmental Health division rather than a Griggs-County-based inspector -- worth knowing so you call the right office the first time, and so you're not confused if the entity administering the permit and the entity conducting the inspection have different names.