Avoiding a septic system in Southern NY.... is it possible?

My father and I are looking to create an off grid tiny house for his retirement home. We've been looking all over NY and we both found a nice little area in Ostego county that was close enough to some small towns that we wouldn't lose our minds from lack of sociality (2 city mice here), but nice and wooded enough to do projects.

We called up the zoning person (I believe) and everything was great until we got to the idea of doing a compost toilet for the tiny house. That seemed to be this guy's specialty and he was not at all about that. He was talking about how we'd need to hire an engineer to approve things and how a septic tank is necessary to pass inspection. Thousands of unnecessary dollars spent on this water situation.

So I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice regarding this? Can you get around it if your structure isn't technically large enough to be considered a home? Do RVs get around this somehow? Are there any loopholes anyone has found? I wouldn't even mind hiring an environmental scientist to make sure what we were doing was good for the land but hiring an engineer to look at a few 10 foot holes in the ground where poop and sawdust will go and eventually turn to soil doesn't make sense to me.

If I can't get around this I think we'll have to move our searches to Vermont, which isn't the worst thing in the world but I was really enjoying the close by tiny towns within an eBike distance, and buses in that town that can lead you to other larger cities.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

In fairness, municipal departments sometimes deal with people dumping raw sewage overland or directly into creeks/rivers (it's all biodegradable, man, what's the fuss). If surface or ground water gets contaiminated because they didn't do it by the numbers, or worse people get sick, workers get fired and municipalities get sued for huge amounts. Such is the world now.

I suspect there are composting toilet designs with an engineer's stamp from somewhere. This might be enough for the zoning guy to cover his bases.

RV's have holding tanks for black water, so they are generally exempt from sewage disposal requirements where they park. If you were in a non-freezing climate, an above-ground holding tank that is theoretically emptied with a septic sucker truck would probably do. (Of course, you don't have to use it; it's the cost of ticking off the box.) In a freezing climate, that holding tank needs to be installed below the frost line. That means an engineered tank that can withstand the force, and that's more expensive. It's still a helluva lot less than a septic leach field though.

Final thought: what's your water source? If, for example, you can show the total amount coming in, that tells the system how much will be going out. The usual calculations for a suburban home aren't realistic. Maybe this will help your argument.